Blog

I’ve thought about writing since I was first diagnosed, almost 8 months ago. I’ve never been much for journaling, but there are so many thoughts constantly going through my head during this whole process that it seems healthy to get them down on paper. By sharing them, I hope that maybe I can help someone else who is on a similar journey. Or maybe a completely different journey. Who knows.

I say this story is starting in the middle, but the reality is that I actually don’t even know if I’m in the middle yet. There are so many unknowns with cancer, and while right now my focus is getting through chemo, the possibility of recurrence is something I will be dealing with for the rest of my life. The only thing I know for sure is I’m somewhere past the beginning. I am 5 months post-op after colon resection surgery and a little more than halfway through a 6-month chemo regimen.

I’ve never been spectacular at identifying my feelings. I remember when I started seeing a therapist more than a decade ago, and she actually had to give me a list of emotions to help me out. Cancer has brought up so many feelings. Fear, shock, sadness, optimism. That last one might sound strange, but in a way this whole process has been empowering. I feel like if I can endure this, I can endure anything (note to the universe: please don’t take that as a challenge). At any rate, I’ve decided to share my thoughts here because I think it will help me process this complete mind fuck of an experience, and maybe it will help someone else along the way. 

I plan to write about my experience being diagnosed with cancer, going through treatment, and whatever else the future holds, cancer-wise. Anyone who knows me also knows that running has been a big part of my life for the past decade or so (with some breaks here and there). RunDisney in particular has been a huge source of joy and motivation in my life for the past couple of years, and it’s something I hope to get back to soon. While I took a bit of a break from running after I was diagnosed, I now have several races on the calendar so I’m starting to slowly get back into training. It feels good to have something to focus on other than cancer, even if running is physically harder than it has ever been. So this will also be a blog about running, to some degree. We shall see where my brain takes us. 

On Monday morning I will head to Moffitt for infusion number eight. I have a total of twelve planned infusions. Each chemo cycle is two weeks. My infusions so far have been on Mondays. I show up, and the first step is labs so they can monitor how my body is handling chemo. They access my port (more about that later I guess, but it’s basically a little device implanted in my chest connected to a catheter that goes straight into my bloodstream near my heart). They take whatever blood they need, and the same port access is used to deliver my chemo. I see my doctor or PA before every other infusion, but I did that last time, so no provider visit this time. 

Next, I go to the infusion center and wait to be called. My infusion takes about two and a half hours. First they give me pre-meds to ward off nausea and allergic reactions to the chemo, then it’s a 30 minute wait in a benadryl-induced stupor before the actual infusion starts. I’ll go into more detail on my actual chemo regimen in a later post, but I get one drug that takes ninety minutes, then a quick push of a second drug. 

The second drug also goes into a pump, which is connected to my port access and I then have to haul around for about 48 hours.

That’s a chemo infusion in a nutshell. I’ll report back on how it goes. The first few days after my infusion are rough. By Friday (four days post-infusion) I usually start to get back to something resembling normal.

I haven’t written anything for others to read aside from memos for work (so many memos) in a very long time, so this will be an interesting exercise. Please let me know what you think! Are there any questions you have that you’d like me to answer?