Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Last One

I have my last chemotherapy session planned for the June 22. I have received several inquiries into how I am going to celebrate/mark this particular event. The purpose of this post is get some ideas of things I could do. There is not any parameters for the marking of this event. Some of the ideas so far have been wear something crazy to the last session. (gorilla suit, or some kind of superhero outfit...), going skydiving or any other extreme activity (I think chemo used up all nine lives), getting a tattoo (nope),  other people have talked about throwing a party or going on a trip (doing both, but neither is really is exactly what I am looking for here.)

I am available for comments directly to the blog, or FB. You can also call, or text. I am also willing to parlay two semi good ideas into one great idea. (like eating food in the shower).

Wes 1.85

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Burritos in the shower

It has been several weeks since my last post, so I wanted to catch up on the most recent developments with Wes 2.0.

I had my 10th chemotherapy treatment last week. This one was not really any different from the previous nine. One interesting thing that occurred was as I was walking out of the hospital in my post chemo "zombie state," I got a whiff of cigarette smoke in the parking lot. I looked up and saw one of the doctors/nurses smoking a cigarette as he was getting out of his car. While giving him the worst chemo face I could, I yelled something I cannot completely remember or write on the blog. Come on now, smoking at a cancer hospital, really. I am not going to write that I wish that guy would get cancer, but I am definitely going to think it. And just for reference, The City of Hope is a smoke free facility... even the parking lots.

Over the last five months I have tried numerous things to elevate the pain and side effects of the chemotherapy. Previous posts on the blog have mentioned some of the more interesting ideas. One principal I have learned is do whatever it takes to make yourself feel better (within reason). In many instances this concept pertains to my eating and sleeping habits.

Once I come home from a chemo session I try and go straight to bed in order to sleep off the initial chemical onslaught. Either Saturday night or sometime Sunday I normally feel good enough to get up and take a shower and try to start getting back to reality. One thing I have been doing is combining my shower time and meal time, taking one thing I really like and combining it with something else I really like.

I started eating in the shower several years ago working as police officer. I would work the midnight shift and get home around breakfast time. Obviously being really tired, I did not feel like sitting down at the table to eat a bowl of cereal and then going to take a shower, so I combined the two in one single glorious event. Eat my cereal while taking a shower.

Now transitioning to my current cancer situation. For several days after chemo I have very low energy levels and don't feel like being out of bed for too long. Therefore, I maximize my time by eating in the shower. Now I don't do this at every meal, but I will admit that during the recovery from the 10th session, I did have two delicious pulled pork burritos in the shower.

Yes, there is probably some hygiene issue with this.
Yes, there is probably some underlying social issue responsible for this habit (not being held enough as a kid, or being bullied at school).
Yes, Kristen knows about this, and actually brought me the burritos last week.
and Yes, I am doing to this because it makes me feel better.

... I have had several other failed ideas at making myself feel better and sitting reverse on the toilet in order to rest my arms on the tank does not make me feel better.