So I was thinking I'd start talking about my history. We'll start with the cancer part. In the fall of 2004 I was diagnosed with Hotchkin's Lymphoma. Hotchkin's has an 89% cure rate or something like that. Basically the cancer grows in your lymph nodes. Lymph nodes are these little things that are all over your torso and neck that filter liquids through your body. There are 4 stages of Hotckin's Lymphoma. Stage one is you have cancer in one lymph node. Stage two is multiple lymph nodes on the same side of your body. Stage three is multiple lymph nodes on both sides. And stage four is everywhere. Or its something like that. My memory gets foggy.
Word or warning, this is long.
So anyway. 2004. It was an interesting year for me. It was an emotional ride from start to finish. But at the same time I had a lot of disciple through most of it. Pretty much from the start of the year until the fall I did an hour of yoga every day.
I was doing martial arts back then. One of my friends I waited tables with at Grady's boyfriends took martial arts lessons from this guy in his garage. I had started lessons with this in 2003 actually. It was awesome. There were only two other students. The style of martial arts we learned involved Arnis, Tai Chi, Silat, Akido, and many others. It was primarily a filipino martial art involving ratan sticks. My teacher's teacher learned royal styles by traveling the filipines. It was cool.
I was also going to school. It was all general education classes so it was easy.
The women I dated that year were very stressful. And my close friends were stressful as well. One of the girls I dated I had harbored a crush on since high school so that was already set up to disappoint. It was mostly her being non-confrontive and ditching me off. And I became more intense for the reaction. The other girl I dated (well more like slept with) I shouldn't have. I had a close friend I ditched off because he started dating one of my ex's a couple weeks after my break up with her. And this chick I slept with was one of his ex's. Honestly at the time I was just happy to be having sex again. She couldn't go for very long though. I learned that the hard way the first time. But that's another bitch for another story. Sad part is she ditched me off. There's been a theme with that the last few years.
Anyway mid-summer I notice that the right side of my neck is misproportioned. I tell some friends about it and they all dismiss it as a goyer or something like that. At least I think that's what they called it. They all dismissed it nonchalantly. I started making jokes about it being my alien baby. Seems like there were a couple other jokes involving the bump. Human nature. Don't know what it is or what its doing so make light of it.
At the time it was on the same side as a tooth pain I had so I visited a dentist. He pulled a tooth and gave me some anti-inflammitories and pain killers. So that didn't work. It was about July by this time.
I also tryed acupuncture. While I felt great afterwords, it obviously didn't work.
So I didn't have any insurance. What I did was sign up for school insurance and then wait until it went into effect mid-August. Hotchkin's Lymphoma was the first thing he mentioned. He said he liked saying the worse case scenario first. He gave me steriods to see if that would fight it off. You have lymph nodes near your crotch. I can't tell you how awkward it was the first time I had a doctor stick his hands down my pants. Not so cool. I didn't even get dinner out of it.
Anyway, first step was to get a CT Scan. This is an x-ray that cost around $1200 that basically just tells the doctor that yes there is a growth there. It doesn't tell the doctor what it is, just that something is there. The second step is a biopsy.
Funny story about the biopsy. A biopsy is where the doctor cuts you open and takes out a tissue sample. In this case, a couple of lymph nodes. It was supposed to be a two inch incision. Well it was more like four or five. There is a picture of it 48 hours after in my picture album. Pretty much I laid down on the bed in the stupid hospital gown. A man came up and said he was the Anesthegeolist and then I passed out. I woke up in massive pain. The doctor asked me if I wanted morphine. I said yes. He said he'd just give me half. A minute later I asked for the rest. It didn't help. It really fucking hurts getting your neck cut open.
I know what it feels like to be a chick now too. My eyes are up here, thank you. I waited tables with a giant bulging cut held together with stitches two days after the surgery. Some people never looked up. I couldn't believe they let me work. Everyone stared. I couldn't wash it for a week it hurt so bad. And then I got the call.
I was in Calculus 1. We took a break and I went to the water fountain. My phone rang. It was the doctor. I can't remember his name. He asked for me. I told him I was speaking. And then he told me I had Hotckin's Lymphoma and that he was sorry. I didn't know what that meant. He told me my doctor would contact me later. I went back to class and finished out the day. My sister was proud of me. Woo.
Here comes the part where everyone started pissing me off. Just a warning.
So I'm informed that the Oncologist my doctor has picked out for me can't see me for three months. Great. I have a thing growing in my neck and I can't do shit about it for three months? This is pretty normal. If you know someone that's had cancer, I can guarantee the same shit happened to them. Anyway, it turns out I got in during the next few weeks. I didn't like the doctor much but I figured he'd do. My family decided that I needed to see a different doctor because of this. I thought it was a pain but I'd go for it.
The first doctor I visited wanted to put me on a very typical cancer treatment. It actually has a name I just can't remember it. Every two weeks a chemo and then do radiation. Radiation has some heinous long term effects so I opted not to do that. He told me I'd have to do even more chemo.
So in the interim between doctors I see a nutritionist that supposedly beat cancer through diet and exercise. She had already been through chemo when she did this. She also believes that cow milk is bad for you and that people shouldn't eat meat and minerals weren't important. I talked with her for a while but I really didn't like her.
During this time I was also on a diet with my martial arts family. It was a non-processed foods vegan diet. I went on it for 40 days. It ended right before chemo. I love those guys.
So I meet my new doctor, who is freaking awesome. He wants to put me on an intense chemo treatment known as the Stanford five. Basically I get a different mix of chemo drugs every week for 12 weeks straight. Drug wise, its more intense than a lot of chemo treatments but most cancer patients have to go through 20 to 30 treatments with radiation. I consider myself lucky. I met a lot of people who were much worse than I.
I suppose this is as good as time as any to talk about what chemotherapy really is and where it originated. Pretty much, chemotherapy is injecting poison into the patients body that will kill the cancerous cells. The problem is it doesn't differentiate between cancer and normal cells. The original chemo drug was mustard gas. During one of the World War's they started using a secret gas (mustard gas) and noticed the effects it had on our own soldiers. They knew that they could use it against cancer but they didn't want to reveal to the public what they'd been using. So a decade later we finally get chemotherapy. Not all modern day chemo drugs are from the same chemical family mustard gas comes from.
The Stanford five is composed of Nitrogen Mustard, Bleomyacin, Vincristine, VP-16, and Prednisone. I think I spelled all those right. The Nitrogen Mustard was the worst out of all of them. It was from the mustard gas family if you didn't already guess. They had to take me to a private room and wear a plastic face shield. They mixed that one in front of me.
So my first chemo treatment was at the end of October I do believe. I felt mostly alright afterwords. So I went to Fayetteville with a good friend to visit more good friends. I puked two on the way down. I was barely conscious. I drank a beer when I was there. I had fun but I felt like shit. Chemo takes about half a day to kick in. My dad was furious that I had left. I learned a lot of things.
First off, chemo sucks. I couldn't do school and work. I dropped school and petitioned for a refund for the semester. Grady's went out of business a week later. Just as well. Still sucks though since I had been there two years and was bartending. I had a lot of friends there. I miss it. Third, was that as much as I needed babysitting physically at times, my friends and family needed babysitting emotionally from me. I was a spoiled child and it took me a long time to become semi-responsible. Well this was everyone trying to undo the work I had put down.
One of my good friends immediately after finding out I had cancer went to researching the topic. When I found out I had cancer I just wanted to forget get. How badly I longed to be normal. Not have this shit to deal with. It really pissed me off he couldn't just relax and just be my friend. He even shaved his head when my hair feel out. That pissed me off too. I've never been one to want to fit in. But all in all I knew he meant well and that I had to be patient with him.
My other good friend was just freaked out in general. He gave me way too much special treatment. He had friends die before on him. Again, I just had to reaffirm that no I wasn't going to die.
My fucking sister told my parents not to let me get lazy. That I needed to keep up with school and work. That pisses me off a bit still to this day. She always looks down on me. I used to admire her so much and present day we barely have anything to say to each other. What I have to keep in mind here is that there are tons of different chemo treatments and everyone reacts to them differently. Someone doing chemotherapy through a pill is able to keep up with a large portion of their life. It still hurts. All I've ever wanted was for my family to be proud of me. I suppose that's all any of us wants. Oh well.
My parents told everyone and their dog that I had cancer. I didn't want people to know. But I know I'm their son and the situation would unnerve any parent.
A few of my old friends were jealous of the attention I was getting for cancer. Jesus Christ what the fuck is wrong with some people? Just goes to show no matter how selective I can be I'm still going to make mistakes. These were the type of people that liked to showcase their mood disorder. They just wanted to feel special. And I have to keep that in mind. Everyone wants to feel special in some way.
The effects of chemotherapy were horrible. I barely ate. I lost over 20 pounds. My body stopped working in so many ways. I was in pain the majority of the time. I cried a lot. I hated myself for feeling sorry for myself. I hate pity. And this was something I had to learn to deal with because I was in a situation where that's what I really needed. I felt really pathetic.
Suprisingly marijuana was the most helpful thing during chemo. It made me feel almost normal during the early chemo sessions. The only problem was that I hadn't smoked anything in years so I was hacking up the entire next morning. It was a trade off of sorts because the hacking up hurt. But it definitely gets ride of the nausea.
My last two chemo treatments I mostly slept through. I slept through most of the week too. There wasn't too many instances of being awake. When it was over it didn't seem that different. I was thinner and alive. I got tired very easily. And I immediately started school again.
I was bitter for a long time afterwords. Evidentally my friends had been cutting me slack on my opinions during chemo and decided they weren't going to anymore now that it was over. Did I mention I hate special treatment? It took me a long time not to hate the world. Even thinking back on it now old emotions arise. I'm not enlightened. I'm not anything special. I'm just here for what its worth. Who the fuck knows why? A year later I released my first CD. Life is short. And half the people alive are going to get cancer at some point during their lives. May as well do what i've always wanted to. Unfortunately it all costs money.
Word or warning, this is long.
So anyway. 2004. It was an interesting year for me. It was an emotional ride from start to finish. But at the same time I had a lot of disciple through most of it. Pretty much from the start of the year until the fall I did an hour of yoga every day.
I was doing martial arts back then. One of my friends I waited tables with at Grady's boyfriends took martial arts lessons from this guy in his garage. I had started lessons with this in 2003 actually. It was awesome. There were only two other students. The style of martial arts we learned involved Arnis, Tai Chi, Silat, Akido, and many others. It was primarily a filipino martial art involving ratan sticks. My teacher's teacher learned royal styles by traveling the filipines. It was cool.
I was also going to school. It was all general education classes so it was easy.
The women I dated that year were very stressful. And my close friends were stressful as well. One of the girls I dated I had harbored a crush on since high school so that was already set up to disappoint. It was mostly her being non-confrontive and ditching me off. And I became more intense for the reaction. The other girl I dated (well more like slept with) I shouldn't have. I had a close friend I ditched off because he started dating one of my ex's a couple weeks after my break up with her. And this chick I slept with was one of his ex's. Honestly at the time I was just happy to be having sex again. She couldn't go for very long though. I learned that the hard way the first time. But that's another bitch for another story. Sad part is she ditched me off. There's been a theme with that the last few years.
Anyway mid-summer I notice that the right side of my neck is misproportioned. I tell some friends about it and they all dismiss it as a goyer or something like that. At least I think that's what they called it. They all dismissed it nonchalantly. I started making jokes about it being my alien baby. Seems like there were a couple other jokes involving the bump. Human nature. Don't know what it is or what its doing so make light of it.
At the time it was on the same side as a tooth pain I had so I visited a dentist. He pulled a tooth and gave me some anti-inflammitories and pain killers. So that didn't work. It was about July by this time.
I also tryed acupuncture. While I felt great afterwords, it obviously didn't work.
So I didn't have any insurance. What I did was sign up for school insurance and then wait until it went into effect mid-August. Hotchkin's Lymphoma was the first thing he mentioned. He said he liked saying the worse case scenario first. He gave me steriods to see if that would fight it off. You have lymph nodes near your crotch. I can't tell you how awkward it was the first time I had a doctor stick his hands down my pants. Not so cool. I didn't even get dinner out of it.
Anyway, first step was to get a CT Scan. This is an x-ray that cost around $1200 that basically just tells the doctor that yes there is a growth there. It doesn't tell the doctor what it is, just that something is there. The second step is a biopsy.
Funny story about the biopsy. A biopsy is where the doctor cuts you open and takes out a tissue sample. In this case, a couple of lymph nodes. It was supposed to be a two inch incision. Well it was more like four or five. There is a picture of it 48 hours after in my picture album. Pretty much I laid down on the bed in the stupid hospital gown. A man came up and said he was the Anesthegeolist and then I passed out. I woke up in massive pain. The doctor asked me if I wanted morphine. I said yes. He said he'd just give me half. A minute later I asked for the rest. It didn't help. It really fucking hurts getting your neck cut open.
I know what it feels like to be a chick now too. My eyes are up here, thank you. I waited tables with a giant bulging cut held together with stitches two days after the surgery. Some people never looked up. I couldn't believe they let me work. Everyone stared. I couldn't wash it for a week it hurt so bad. And then I got the call.
I was in Calculus 1. We took a break and I went to the water fountain. My phone rang. It was the doctor. I can't remember his name. He asked for me. I told him I was speaking. And then he told me I had Hotckin's Lymphoma and that he was sorry. I didn't know what that meant. He told me my doctor would contact me later. I went back to class and finished out the day. My sister was proud of me. Woo.
Here comes the part where everyone started pissing me off. Just a warning.
So I'm informed that the Oncologist my doctor has picked out for me can't see me for three months. Great. I have a thing growing in my neck and I can't do shit about it for three months? This is pretty normal. If you know someone that's had cancer, I can guarantee the same shit happened to them. Anyway, it turns out I got in during the next few weeks. I didn't like the doctor much but I figured he'd do. My family decided that I needed to see a different doctor because of this. I thought it was a pain but I'd go for it.
The first doctor I visited wanted to put me on a very typical cancer treatment. It actually has a name I just can't remember it. Every two weeks a chemo and then do radiation. Radiation has some heinous long term effects so I opted not to do that. He told me I'd have to do even more chemo.
So in the interim between doctors I see a nutritionist that supposedly beat cancer through diet and exercise. She had already been through chemo when she did this. She also believes that cow milk is bad for you and that people shouldn't eat meat and minerals weren't important. I talked with her for a while but I really didn't like her.
During this time I was also on a diet with my martial arts family. It was a non-processed foods vegan diet. I went on it for 40 days. It ended right before chemo. I love those guys.
So I meet my new doctor, who is freaking awesome. He wants to put me on an intense chemo treatment known as the Stanford five. Basically I get a different mix of chemo drugs every week for 12 weeks straight. Drug wise, its more intense than a lot of chemo treatments but most cancer patients have to go through 20 to 30 treatments with radiation. I consider myself lucky. I met a lot of people who were much worse than I.
I suppose this is as good as time as any to talk about what chemotherapy really is and where it originated. Pretty much, chemotherapy is injecting poison into the patients body that will kill the cancerous cells. The problem is it doesn't differentiate between cancer and normal cells. The original chemo drug was mustard gas. During one of the World War's they started using a secret gas (mustard gas) and noticed the effects it had on our own soldiers. They knew that they could use it against cancer but they didn't want to reveal to the public what they'd been using. So a decade later we finally get chemotherapy. Not all modern day chemo drugs are from the same chemical family mustard gas comes from.
The Stanford five is composed of Nitrogen Mustard, Bleomyacin, Vincristine, VP-16, and Prednisone. I think I spelled all those right. The Nitrogen Mustard was the worst out of all of them. It was from the mustard gas family if you didn't already guess. They had to take me to a private room and wear a plastic face shield. They mixed that one in front of me.
So my first chemo treatment was at the end of October I do believe. I felt mostly alright afterwords. So I went to Fayetteville with a good friend to visit more good friends. I puked two on the way down. I was barely conscious. I drank a beer when I was there. I had fun but I felt like shit. Chemo takes about half a day to kick in. My dad was furious that I had left. I learned a lot of things.
First off, chemo sucks. I couldn't do school and work. I dropped school and petitioned for a refund for the semester. Grady's went out of business a week later. Just as well. Still sucks though since I had been there two years and was bartending. I had a lot of friends there. I miss it. Third, was that as much as I needed babysitting physically at times, my friends and family needed babysitting emotionally from me. I was a spoiled child and it took me a long time to become semi-responsible. Well this was everyone trying to undo the work I had put down.
One of my good friends immediately after finding out I had cancer went to researching the topic. When I found out I had cancer I just wanted to forget get. How badly I longed to be normal. Not have this shit to deal with. It really pissed me off he couldn't just relax and just be my friend. He even shaved his head when my hair feel out. That pissed me off too. I've never been one to want to fit in. But all in all I knew he meant well and that I had to be patient with him.
My other good friend was just freaked out in general. He gave me way too much special treatment. He had friends die before on him. Again, I just had to reaffirm that no I wasn't going to die.
My fucking sister told my parents not to let me get lazy. That I needed to keep up with school and work. That pisses me off a bit still to this day. She always looks down on me. I used to admire her so much and present day we barely have anything to say to each other. What I have to keep in mind here is that there are tons of different chemo treatments and everyone reacts to them differently. Someone doing chemotherapy through a pill is able to keep up with a large portion of their life. It still hurts. All I've ever wanted was for my family to be proud of me. I suppose that's all any of us wants. Oh well.
My parents told everyone and their dog that I had cancer. I didn't want people to know. But I know I'm their son and the situation would unnerve any parent.
A few of my old friends were jealous of the attention I was getting for cancer. Jesus Christ what the fuck is wrong with some people? Just goes to show no matter how selective I can be I'm still going to make mistakes. These were the type of people that liked to showcase their mood disorder. They just wanted to feel special. And I have to keep that in mind. Everyone wants to feel special in some way.
The effects of chemotherapy were horrible. I barely ate. I lost over 20 pounds. My body stopped working in so many ways. I was in pain the majority of the time. I cried a lot. I hated myself for feeling sorry for myself. I hate pity. And this was something I had to learn to deal with because I was in a situation where that's what I really needed. I felt really pathetic.
Suprisingly marijuana was the most helpful thing during chemo. It made me feel almost normal during the early chemo sessions. The only problem was that I hadn't smoked anything in years so I was hacking up the entire next morning. It was a trade off of sorts because the hacking up hurt. But it definitely gets ride of the nausea.
My last two chemo treatments I mostly slept through. I slept through most of the week too. There wasn't too many instances of being awake. When it was over it didn't seem that different. I was thinner and alive. I got tired very easily. And I immediately started school again.
I was bitter for a long time afterwords. Evidentally my friends had been cutting me slack on my opinions during chemo and decided they weren't going to anymore now that it was over. Did I mention I hate special treatment? It took me a long time not to hate the world. Even thinking back on it now old emotions arise. I'm not enlightened. I'm not anything special. I'm just here for what its worth. Who the fuck knows why? A year later I released my first CD. Life is short. And half the people alive are going to get cancer at some point during their lives. May as well do what i've always wanted to. Unfortunately it all costs money.
dreu:
Wow.