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My thoughts released; a mind set free |
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These pages contain my thoughts, from meandering ideas and persuasions to deep cerebrations and serious mentations. Why, for what purpose? To release my mind and set creativity free. Somewhere inside the constraints of my mind dwells a writer, a poet, an artist who paints with words. In here I release those constraints and set the artist free. Perhaps, lost somewhere in the depths of thought, is a story or a poem, waiting to be written. |
| I had my labs and everything is looking good considering the type of infusions I'm being given, except my potassium was too low; I now get another pill to take. Actually, two more, the other is to counter the neuropathy I have from the chemo. After I met with my oncologist to go over everything, he agreed that I can end my chemo, but it will increase the chance of the cancer returning quite a bit. We discussed things in great detail, and I learned that the type of cancer I have is very aggressive and hard to stop. So, to give me the best chance of survival, I have to take the most aggressive form of chemo, and why I had to have my esophagus removed instead of just the tumorous part. The type of cancer I have, I was told today, would have finished me off in three to six months if left untreated. Why didn't the doctors tell me all this when I was first diagnosed instead of side-stepping so many of my questions? Because they (the medical team) have determined that many patients lose hope and give up fighting if they know all this from the start. I can understand that, but I can't agree with it. I should have been told right from the start how aggressive this cancer is and how devastating the treatment is. If I complete my chemo, I have a 38% chance of being cancer-free five years from now. If I don't, that number drops even more. Not a great outlook, but hey, I'll take every year I can get and hope to be in the 38%. On the plus side of this, however, is that I'm also using amunotherapy, and that increases my percentage quite a bit, if it works for me. This is something new that was published around the time I had my surgery. My labs indicated that my white count was elevated and that the therapy seems to be working. The bottom line, I will be going in for my infusion tomorrow. I want to beat this thing if possible. Because of some of the damage it's doing and how sick it's making me, it won't be a full dose, but instead is reduced to 70%. After I will see how well I handle it, and if possible, I'll suffer through the final infusion in two weeks. We also discussed how bad the neuropathy is and whether it's permanent or not. My oncologist believes it will get better, but it may take six months or more before it does. He also informed me that even after the last infusion, it will get worse for a few months before it starts to heal. He told me that over half of his patients doing the treatments I'm on end up in a wheelchair by the end of the infusions, and only about half of them recover enough to get out of it. But, again, on a positive note, by the lab results and how well I've tolerated things so far, I'm doing better than most, and he thinks I have a better chance of beating this if I complete the treatments, and of being able to lead a somewhat normal life after. All in all, it was a good meeting, but I'm still upset with the information being withheld; I should have been given all the information up front. |
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