NAPOM For Your Innards

Yes...NAPOM for your innards. That's what I've decided that chemo is. Every other Friday I go in and get hooked up to an IV that basically NAPOMs my whole digestive system.

Imagine with me for a moment that every inch of my digestive track from my mouth all the way down through the throat to the tummy and through the guts is covered in sneaky little rice hat wearing Viet Kong assassins. Sneaky little buggers who are just waiting to pounce on my otherwise healthy red, white and (for the sake of this imagery) blue cells. Do you see them laying in wait? Do you see them twisting their little moustaches with evil glee?

But wait! Up above! The little Viet Kong Assassin Cancer cells hear something. Could it be thunder? No. It’s the sound of jets storming the skies ready to drop their NAPOM and light this Mo-Fo UP! And as the chemo enters my body I envision the scene out of “Apocalypse Now” and all those little cancer assassins as crusty little burnt embers. And that’s pretty much where the imagery ends. Of course there’s usually “Ball of Confusion” by the Temptations or some sort of Rolling Stones song playing in the background.

But I digress…I guess I should start out this blog by saying what it is and why I’m doing it. In January I was diagnosed with Stage III colorectal cancer. I have never been “sick” and really wasn’t expecting the result of my first colonoscopy to be…”Well True, you have a very angry looking tumor that is most likely malignant.”

Nice eh? I thought so. But…as a doctor how do you deliver that news? And better yet…as the surgeon who removes the tumor and all the accompanying lymph nodes and tissues…how do you deliver the “True, you have cancer” news? Well I guess you do it just like that. At least that’s how it happened for me.

I don’t think you’re ever truly prepared to hear those three rather gi-normous words.

You.

Have.

Cancer.

How strange that three words can impact your life in such unexpected ways. But it does and then you realize that life goes on.

So January 11th I had my colonoscopy and that’s where they found the tumor. By the 20th I was having surgery to remove Mr. Dishman.

Yes…I named my tumor. I’m a very visual person and it was easier for me to visualize the whole surgery and tumor removal if I gave the tumor a personality. So I went through my mental rolodex of all the people in my life who I would consider “arch nemeses”. The one that kept floating to the top, per se, was my elementary school principal…Mr. Dishman. The man who would come in to my 3rd grade classroom, take the pencil out of my hand, and force me to hold it “the right way” because…”True, you’ll never be a good secretary if you can’t hold your pencil right”.

Seriously??? Even at 9 years old I knew two things: A) I did NOT want to be a secretary and B) I had gorgeous penmanship so who cared how I held my pencil??? But there I go digressing again.

So January 20th Mr. Dishman lost his hold on my colon and was promptly removed and sent off to a lab for testing. Now…like most people we had held out hope that the tumor would be self contained and by removing that we would be removing any hint of cancer. But by the 24th I’d heard the words you’re never prepared to hear and my blood pressure sky-rocketed from a lovely morphine induced 107/76 to 148/95. Truly! I kid you not. I think people should carry around little blood pressure machines and take their blood pressures periodically throughout the day, especially when they get stressed, just to see how crazy that shit can get!

By Valentine’s Day I’d gotten my port put in and had an unexpected hospital stay for two days as my lung re-inflated. You see, my surgeon, God bless him, had accidently nicked my lung while inserting the port and my little left lung collapsed. It SUCKED! The physical trauma of having a tumor removed has NOTHING on getting a chest tube. No joke. It’s horrible! I’ve never been in that much pain in my entire life. And don’t let the term “tube” confuse you…it’s really more like a garden hose forced between two ribs. Three months later and that area where they put in the chest tube is still sore some days.

By February 26th I’d had my first round of chemo. I put them on my calendar counting down backwards from 12-1. I have to have 12 treatments over the course of 6 months. So…do the math and that’s one treatment every 2 weeks until July 30th. Do not kid yourself…I AM counting down.

Luckily I’ve been really blessed from the beginning with outstanding doctors. Some I hand- picked and some I didn’t. But all have been very good, empathetic, and forthright. Which, let’s face it, when you’re staring down death…you want all the people in your army to be action oriented and forthright. And these guys are.

I’m now down 5 treatments. The newness has worn off. And now every other Friday is just becoming a bugger. The worst part of the whole thing is that one of the chemicals…really the NAPOM of the whole cocktail…is so strong that it has to be pumped in over a 48 hour period. So each chemo weekend I get to go home with a lovely fanny pack of chemo.

Needless to say, my dating life has taken a total backseat this spring. Camouflaging a fanny pack of chemo is just too exhausting. So I pretty much just stay home on the weekends that I have that. This is good because I’m normally too tired to do much else.

That’s pretty much it. I’ll try to keep this updated as I move along. And knowing me…it’s sure to be humorous…and if it’s not I’ll add a disclaimer at the beginning. HA!