Not Cancer-Related (sort of)

In general, I'm a very practical guy. My day-to-day activities and decisions are usually very measured, cautious and sensible.

That philosophy extends to the larger decisions in my life. When I bought a house, it was a standard 3-2-2 in a quiet neighborhood in the suburbs. When I bought a car, it was a reliable sedan.

Obviously, over the past year or so, I've been questioning how happy I've been with some of those decisions. Yes, they've made for a comfortable, safe life. But they are really boring.

Lately, I've been obsessing over my car. Now, don't get me wrong here--I love my car. It's in great shape, low miles, runs like a champ and has been paid-off for a while now. There's not a single thing wrong with it.

That is, other than the fact that it's a beige sedan. Why in the hell do I drive a beige sedan? Do I have kids to haul around? Am I that damn boring?

Ever since I saw this on the lot, I can't get it out of my head:


Shiny. Oh my, so shiny.

Isn't this what I should be driving?

I know all the arguments against this. Materialism is bad. (but isn't that why I work so hard?) There's nothing wrong with your current car--why another car payment? Don't buy new--it looses [x]% of value when you drive it off the lot.

But I just can't help myself.

So, the question is this: how much of a post-cancer mid-life crisis am I allowed? Is a 5-year car note too much? (yeah, I know the answers I'll get to this... i'm not stupid)

Follow-Up

Ok, finally doing better. That one was seriously un-fun couple of weeks.

But now it looks like it's over. I've got one more 15-minute chemo infusion on Friday, but those are usually "easy". After that, I'll get bloodwork in a couple of weeks that should show my cancer markers as undetectible.

And for the next couple of years, I'll need CT scans and more bloodwork every few months to make sure this thing stays dead. My doctors seem very confident that everything will be fine.

So, what now? They say it will take about 2 months for me to get back to 100% normal. I can believe it. "Normal" is quite a ways off from where I am right now and while I can feel progress every day, it's very, very slow.

I really appreciate everyone's support during this. It's definately made a difference. It's so much easier to go through something if you know you've got people on your side. I know it's made me appreciate the people in my life so much more.

EDIT: Oops, I guess I repeated some info from the last post. Sorry--I forget what I've already blogged about. There's just not much new information when I spend 22 hours a day sitting on my butt.

Suck

I finally found out why chemo sucks. Man, round 3 has been rough. This is like day 10 and I think it's the first time I've felt anywhere near half normal. (and by "normal", I mean that I can actually get off the couch of my own free will without much pain)

I've got to admit that I've never felt this physically broken before. Everything is a challenge. Even eating a bowl of soup is enough to take the wind out of me and usually requires a 15-minute breather afterwards.

But my recovery is going as well as can be expected. I saw my PA on Friday and she was very pleased with my progress. So, it's all good--just a lot harder than before.

I've got one last chemo infusion next Friday and that should be it. The PA says that it will take me a couple of months to get back to 100%, but she seems very confident that I'll make a full recovery. Just lots of blood work and CT scans over the next couple of years to make sure this sucker is gone.

Yet more good news

As I mentioned before, the primary way they are tracking my cancer is via my AFP marker count.

When I checked into the hospital, it was 923. After round 1 it was down to 108. As of Wednesday, it's 10!

Yeah, it's not quite 0 yet, but that's what round 3 is for. (I'm in the waiting room--ready to start it at any minute)

Ready for this to be over...

I start round 3 on Friday. This needs to be done with so I can get back to my life. I'm tired of sitting on the couch all day because I don't have the energy to do anything else. I'm tired of sleeping half of the day and then not being able to sleep at night. I'm tired of my brain not working. I guess I'm just a bit frustrated.

3 more weeks. Just 3 more weeks.

Boring

It looks like the "rough" part of round 2 is over. I'm starting what's considered the recovery phase and just have a couple of small chemo infusions before starting round 3 in a couple of weeks.

I've finally got just enough energy and brain power back to be self-sufficient once more. I gave the folks the nod and they headed back home yesterday morning. Now it's a waiting/resting game once again.

Sorry for the lack of posts. The folks did a really good job of keeping me just busy enough to keep me off the couch 24/7 (that's a good thing), but that meant that at the end of the day, I just didn't have the energy to punch out a post.

But I can't say that there's anything going on. This is actually really boring. Oh, I could go on and on about all of the little side effects and all that crap, but it's just not interesting. And I can't bitch about stuff like loosing my sense of taste. They are curing me of cancer. Complaining about little side effects would be asinine. I'm thankful they're fixing me--I'll gladly shut up about the rest.

This would be the perfect opportunity for me to plan my world domination or something equally impressive--one of those things I'd always said that I'd do if I juts had enough time off. But I just don't have the brain power or energy.

So I guess it's back to taking it relatively easy. The big agenda item for today is having brunch with a bunch of the guys. That will have to suffice for the moment.