Today was a cancer treatment day for me and, like the last one three weeks ago, it was a long one. We arrived at the cancer center at 8:05 this morning and left to drive home a few minutes before 5. The length of the treatment was longer than it should have been (as was that one three weeks ago), due to my body’s displeasure with carboplatin. Last time, the extended timeframe was due in large part to undergoing a process intended to overcome my allergy to the drug, experienced at an earlier session. That process worked…during that treatment. Naturally assuming the allergy had been overcome, then, the normal administration of carboplatin intravenously commenced today. About halfway through the infusion, though, I developed some moderate symptoms of allergy/rejection (difficulty breathing and a sensation of feeling very warm/hot). The nurses immediately stopped the administration of the IV and informed the oncologist. Even before getting the doctor, one of the nurses brought a tank of oxygen to my therapy station and began giving administering it. The doctor came in immediately and instructed the nurses to give me an injection (through the IV line) of Benadryl. After having me breathe oxygen and relax for several minutes, the doctor asked me several questions about my earlier experience with Benadryl. She then told the nurses to continue administering the carboplatin, but at half the original rate of infusion. Her strategy worked. She instructed the nurses to make a permanent note in my files, indicating that future infusions of carboplatin should be administered over a period of one full hour, rather than the half hour she had originally planned. The doctor arranged for me to get a regular follow-up injection tomorrow morning (something to protect me from infections), a regular part of the process. A long, long day; but at 8 to 5, almost like a short day, “in the old days” at the office. I won’t have a PET scan or a CAT scan until one or two more treatments have been done; so, not until after at least 3-6 weeks from now. So, I won’t have any concrete evidence of the effectiveness of adjusted treatment since progress was downgraded after a PET scan revealed the earlier success of the treatment had degraded. Impatience and worry are among a plethora of my most obvious character flaws.
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Those of us who live in my part of Central Arkansas can expect outdoor temperatures to increase by roughly 22°F before the sun sets, topping out at 95°F around 4:00 p.m. Much of my day, though, will be spent in a frigid building, while nurses periodically check and refresh the IV drip delivering various powerful drugs to my circulatory system. Among them, the drug that caused me—two days later and three or four days after that—to feel quite a bit of pain in what felt like every joint and muscle in my body. The same drug, I believe, is responsible for my hair falling out in clumps before I had the barber give me a scalp-close trim. When he finished the job, the barber refused payment; people who know me even casually know how difficult it was for me to keep my composure, as gratitude for his compassionate act swept over me.
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I wrote the paragraphs below early this morning, but left the blog to go to my cancer center appointment (described above). I am too lazy to restructure this blog entry; I am sure anyone reading it can understand that the sequence is off.
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My sister was scheduled to have the second of two hip replacements this morning. I have not spoken to her since yesterday. I hope it went off without a hitch and will fully heal in short order, making walking much easier and less painful for her. She had been dealing with hip pain for far too long.
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I am unhappy with myself this evening. Though my anger is a bit irrational, it is real and impossible to erase. Because history cannot be altered; not eliminated, not corrected, not disguised as something it is not. I am angry that I did not successfully pursue or even try to take advantage of so many potential opportunities when I was young enough to follow them. Some of them would have been easy to achieve, if only I had tried. Some would have been much more difficult. But those are suppositions; unproveable theories that cannot be tested. I wish I had doggedly pursued more advanced education. I wish I had devoted more serious attention to learning far more about areas of interest than I did; in many cases, I sailed through easy but boring subjects, learning just enough to get acceptable grades. I didn’t dedicate enough energy and attention even to subjects that fascinated me because I feared I might not be as bright as I thought I might be…and maybe I would not be able to learn as much as I wanted, simply because I was not smart enough. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of examples; not all related to school. Some had to do with social skills, some with physical efforts to build strength and stamina, some with coping with difficult emotional matters, some with self-discipline. The list is much, much longer. People are fond of saying “you’re never too old to [pick your activity or achievement]. Oh, yes, you can be too old to do many things. Physically, mentally, and practically in many other ways, you can be too old. Looking back, so many of the missed opportunities to be a more interesting, more intelligent, more likeable, and generally better person have become old, impossible, withered dreams. You’re never too old… Oh, yes. The best approach is to try to wash away those regrets and focus on past accomplishments and present enjoyable, productive activities. At least that’s my position this evening—as precarious as that feels at this moment.
