Wow, to say that everything has changed since that last posting is a giant understatement. I started having severe abdominal pains on March 26th, went to the ER and had a colonoscopy shortly after that. An obstruction was found, and a week later I was being admitted to the hospital. Couple days and lots of pokes, prods and tests later I was told I had colon cancer and that surgery was needed to remove the part of my colon where the tumor was. Turned out I lost 2/3 of my colon, or large intestine, but thankfully I didn't end up with an ostomy bag, which was my first question out of surgery.
So I spent 15 days in the hospital due to some complications, then came home for 2 days only to find myself back in the hospital with a bowel obstruction. So a second surgery and 12 more hospital days and I finally came home for good on May 12th. Recovery from surgery took a while, but I finally started to feel better. Then I met with an oncologist who dropped the bomb on me that without chemotherapy, my Stage II cancer had a 23% chance of returning in 5 years. I was just beginning to feel this nightmare fading into the background a bit, and now i was being told it would keep going. That was a hard day.
So after some soul searching and of course talking to my family of friends, I decided to go with the more aggressive 6 month regimen of IV infusion chemo. So a chemo port was surgically installed just under my left clavicle on my chest, and I have now had two doses of a regimen called Folfox. The first one wasn't too bad, but this second one hasn't been a picnic. Lots of nausea this time around, and I just feel crummy ,,, low energy, bad taste in my mouth, some foods taste a little off, fingers hurt when i touch anything cold and my throat is sore.
I have 10 more chemo sessions to get through, and while there's no guarantee with this, it does reduce my chances of reoccurence to 9% in the next five years which are really pretty good odds. I get my chemo every other week, on Tuesdays. I go into the infusion center where they access my port first to get blood and run my CBC counts, then the infusion of two out of three drugs starts and goes for about 2-3 hours. Before I leave I get hooked up to a pump containing my third drug, which I take home with me until Thursday when it's disconnected.
It's been one hell of an ordeal so far, but all things considered (i.e. I'm still alive) it's something I can and will get through.
Metamorphosis
