Category: Results

Emotional Landscapes and Random Thoughts

I listened to an interview with best-selling author Marion Keyes today and she talked about writing emotional landscapes.  This is a wonderful phrase; it captures the many random thoughts I have about life, being human, living with cancer, with chemo, with uncertainty.  Random thoughts, the theme for this blog, a collection of moments from the last two months where thoughts appeared in my mind as I sat, walked, waited, tossed, turned, fumed, cried, ached, appreciated, smiled, laughed and loved, always loved.

Music

House music is on my mind and in my ears…though the Brighton weekend for clubbing was a bust – great weekend – we just didn’t find a stylish club with fab house music.  Our guys went ahead to do reconnaissance.  They didn’t even make it inside one club. A group of people came out (not fast enough according to them) saying very loudly how sh*t the club was, dark, dingy, crap music…needless to say we abandoned that idea.  Fab friends made up for clubbing disappointments.  After all, we are fortunate enough to live in one of the best club cities in the world so maybe we’ll stay local next time!

Chemo Update

The chemo regime called VTD is different this time, cannulation monthly only – yippee!  The weekly injection of Velcade isn’t so bad.  I take one dose of anti-nausea beforehand and haven’t needed anymore anti-nausea drugs afterwards so far.  I end up with a little localised bruising.  The drug kicks in fully after about 36 hours…funny sensations, aches, pains (all bearable) in my bones…I visualise Myeloma shrivelling and dissolving. 

The Thalidomide seems to impact my quality of life a lot more than the Velcade.  Yes that Thalidomide, the one that causes horrible side effects for foetuses.  It is no longer given to pregnant women but was discovered to have a positive impact on cancer, see here),  The daily 80mg dose knocks me out and I feel tired ALL THE TIME.  The stuff is toxic.  A nurse who first administered the pills to me was gloved up and handling it like it was a hot potato, doing their best to avoid all contact with the pills.  I wondered what the hell I was about to put into my body!  

Even the weekly steroid doesn’t combat the lethargy (but it has made me eat more and I’ve put on 7kg that I don’t want!).  Early morning energy is now a distant memory.  The other unwanted side effect of is my stomach is like a horizontal crackerjack.  I take Thalidomide and out my stomach comes, tight and large, making me look like I have consumed a whole loaf of gluten filled bread or more ironically, I look pregnant. On top of the VTD chemo regime I inject nightly Clexane, a blood thinner to stop the Thalidomide from causing blood clots. 

Oh the layers…take this because it helps this but then take that because to take the first thing you need that thing to stop the bad things of the first thing….and round and round it goes….Still, the regime is working and the presence of Myeloma in my blood and bone is dropping again, down from 17 to 11.  Hopefully it will continue to fall.

Creepy Chrimbo

Doesn’t it seem an age since Christmas already?  I nicked named last Christmas, Creepy Chrimbo because the hospital was strange and very different from usual.  My chemo didn’t stop just because it was Christmas eve or New Year’s eve.  I am grateful for all of the hardworking nurses who managed to fit in everyone’s treatment to a short week so Christmas Day could be the best it could be. 

Hospital halls were eerily empty and I could hear every footstep I made ringing in my ears. I felt like I was in an Alfred Hitchcock thriller or that Jack Nicholson’s horror film grin would appear around a door jamb any second.  The sense of being alone was made worse because the Chemo Unit is down the end of a long corridor, I often feel like it’s ‘shoved away’ with the renal unit, out of the way because somehow we are toxic and ‘they’ don’t want us near others, the healthier people, in case we contaminate them somehow.  I know this is silly but then maybe not?  Chemo is after all, hazardous, noxious and needs careful handling so maybe it is purposeful that our unit is past the research centre and beyond the other wards.  I know it isn’t helpful to think this way, a little negatively, like we are not really wanted and are merely being put up with somehow.  The NHS staff certainly don’t perpetuate this story; they are friendly and welcoming.

Just before I was alone in the long corridor I noticed a woman on a hospital bed being wheeled towards the renal unit.  I try not to look at people when they are being wheeled around in public view, I often think it is fairly undignified yet obviously a necessary event in hospitals.  I wouldn’t want to make eye contact with anyone if it was me on that bed.  I’ve noticed some patients close their eyes, put a pillow or blanket over their face – possibly to gain some privacy in a very public space so I try to offer it by glancing away quickly.  Though if someone in a bed looked directly at me I have decided to smile and hope they find it reaffirming, reassuring, and non-judgemental somehow. 

This woman was on her side, looking away.  It was after 5pm on the 24^th and I wondered what her Christmas would be like and what her story was.  Would she be sad to be in hospital over Christmas Day?  Did she have family who wished she was with them? Would they visit her?  Did she want them to visit?  Or was she secretly relieved she had the best excuse to not ‘do’ Christmas this year, to rest and focus on herself instead.  Or maybe she didn’t celebrate Christmas at all and instead would be disappointed to be missing out on holidays.  These thoughts vanished as I found myself alone in a grey corridor with white walls, in silence where there was usually the hustle and bustle of nurses, doctors, patients and public, trolleys and endless supply boxes.   

The silence strangely continued outside where the usually busy main street was devoid of cars and people.  This reminded me of the contrasts of Christmas, wonderful, fun, exciting for some and challenging, triggering, or lonely for others.

Repurposed

The new buzzword popping up everywhere is Repurposed.  From transforming old furniture into something new or turning one person’s rubbish into another person’s useful item, and now, the latest thing is repurposed drugs.  Essentially, using drugs already approved by the medication regulators for treating non-cancer illnesses, to treat cancer or be added to existing cancer treatments to increase effectiveness. 

When I first came across this I thought it was yet another cancer fad because the headlines gaining traction were about repurposing dog wormer! Yes you read correctly.  Cancer patients were shouting out about how an anti-parasitic drug called Fenbendazole usually used for deworming dogs had cured their cancer!  I was very dismissive. I don’t want to miss out on something that works but I don’t want to get caught up, distracted, invest time and precious energy into the cancer equivalent of the latest diet or beauty treatment. Dog dewormer seemed to be more in the fad than the credible category and on par with ‘take turmeric’ and your cancer will vanish.  While I am a big fan of turmeric and curcumin and take it daily, I do not believe for one second that it (or Fenbendazole for that matter) will single-handedly cure my cancer or cure anyone’s cancer. 

But then I got thinking, had I been too quick to write off this idea?  Medical discoveries come in many forms, (like the Thalidomide scandal) from unlikely places so why wouldn’t it make sense that a medication that addressed one illness, whether in animals or humans, might also be found to have anticancer effects?  I took another look and found this. Click Here

I googled some more (as you do) and came across some other interesting stuff…

Trials and projects involving existing non-cancer drugs are now being investigated for their effects on cancer – these are so important because if found to be effective they are likely to be approved for cancer treatment quickly, be cheaper and more widely accessible as they are already approved for human use and side effects are known.  These links explain more..

https://integrativeoncology-essentials.com/2020/01/use-of-off-label-drugs-and-supplements-in-cancer-in-2020/

http://www.redo-project.org/

Imagine living with cancer, walking in to a clinic, having your DNA and genome sequenced by a friendly lab technician and walking out knowing a specialist will create a cancer killing virus tailored just for you and your cancer.  This is another exciting development that doesn’t seem too far away now…it’s not science fiction!   Check out Andrew Hessel, founder of Humane Genomics, he explains how tailor-made viruses may one day cure cancer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jjQ4QDhuBU

I wonder how I will be repurposed…will I be fertiliser for a beautiful oak? Will I return as a stretchy, wiley happy cat?  A roll of loo paper (someone’s revenge though at least it’s useful)? Or a spider, imagine eight eyes to people watch with….

Contract

I’m due an upgrade on my phone.  Chatting with my wonderful friend and hairdresser K, we laughed about our mobile phone providers and how I could easily be expected to sign up to a new contract that would out last me!  Humour and especially dark humour is an emotional landscape I find really helpful.

Blue Sky

It is a high blue sky, crisp cold and sunny day in London today. This emotional landscape is beautiful and I found myself smiling, A LOT.

Acknowledgements

Images: 

Woman in the woods – Andrew Neel on Unsplash

DJ – Jernej Graj on Unsplash

Dog Wormer picture (care of The Sun)

Others – Me & Hubby

© 2020 Janine Hayward www.psychingoutcancer.com.  All rights reserved.

Posted in Chemotherapy for Myeloma, Myeloma Treatment, Results Tagged with: Bone Cancer, Cancer, Christmas, Dexamethazone, Dog Wormer, Drugs, Fenbendazole, House Music, Myeloma, Repurposed, Steroid, Thalidomide, Velcade

Shapeshifter and Thank you

Boo!

Did I change career over the last month of 2017, become a lead actor in a thriller? This thing keeps creeping up from behind me, above me, beside me, from below, yelling BOO! It sends my cortisol levels sky high, makes my heart pound and brain race.  I’ll be tidying, reading, sitting, walking down the street, thinking about something or standing in a queue, essentially minding my own business, when WHAAAHHH! There it is.

I recognise it straight away. Sometimes, I even feel it sneaking up on me yet it still scares the living daylights out of me. It’s a shape shifter, a dark cloud and an amour piercing arrow. Either way it makes me gasp, scream, crash, sleep, feel defunct. It pulls the ground out from underneath me, leaves me doubting the paths taken and decisions made that previously seemed acutely clear and necessary.  It’s an expert protagonist in this production. It doesn’t take direction.  It’s a master tease, dangling hope and snatching it away, reminding me, it’s in control.  I’m the newbie on set with no Daniel Day Lewis, Dame Maggie Smith or Christian Bale style mentor to guide me.  In the meantime, it picks another corner to hide in and I jump through the roof with the next BOO!

It’s not cancer; it’s fatigue.

Fatigue and Fear

Fatigue, is really getting to me.  I don’t get enough sleep.  I wake every two hours.

I’m also scared.  Though I do know I’m alive!

I’m scared of dying young. I’m scared of missing out.  I’m scared of making a poor decision; making my condition worse or accelerating its progress.  I’m scared of being a burden.  I’m scared of not being enough for my husband, of dragging his life down (all the active plans we had). I’m scared he’ll leave me. I’m scared I’ll ask him to leave me, to go off and find someone else, to have a life with more fun, that doesn’t involve or revolve around a wife living with terminal illness.  I’m scared that I don’t and won’t again resemble my sense of who I am; an active, full of life, adventurous person who stands on mountains, travels everywhere, is strong, independent, sensual.  I’m plain scared.

Fatigue and fear.  I feel them. I get paralysed by them.  I think about them. And, yep you know it by now (if you have read my earlier blogs)..…

That’s OK. It’s OK that fatigue and fear do that.

It’s natural.  I am living with cancer and have had a gazillion sessions of Chemo during 2017, numerous biopsies, scans, endless blood tests, new challenging experiences and learnt a new language of medical intervention.  However, just because I face big challenges or can find myself embroiled in fatigue and fear, doesn’t mean I must let these factors take over this whole blog.

I can do a bit of my own shapeshifting, respond rather than react, slowly little by little unlock the paralysis and pull on a cloak of ‘sitting in all the good things’.  I can start now.  I’m not ignoring fatigue and fear.  I’m not denying their existence.  I am denying them their take over plans.  I am choosing to focus on something else right now.

Today, this blog is going to be about a huge THANK YOU and more Good News!

THANK YOU.

Belated Merry Christmas and / or Happy Holidays and Happy Happy New Year everyone.  Thank you ALL, for reading my blog, for subscribing, for commenting, for sharing it with others who may have an interest in the journey, an interest in what has worked for me so far in managing cancer or an interest in the psychology tips and experience I have incorporated.

Thank you too, for all the wonderful cards, calls, skype time, meals together, moments and best wishes my hubby and I have received over the holidays.  They are so appreciated.  Every single one.

I firmly believe that all your support and encouragement has contributed to my good news. I have felt loved, helped, contained, hopeful and normal at times when things were far from normal.  THANK YOU from the bottom, to the top, of my heart.

THE GOOD NEWS.

My December 2017 results are great.  In addition to those mentioned in the previous blog, titled 48, my recent pet scan, bone marrow biopsy and MRI have overall been extremely positive.  Of the four lesions I was diagnosed with, only ONE near L5 in my lower back took up glucose during the pet scan, indicating active myeloma.  Even this lesion took up significantly LESS glucose than it has done in previous scans.  Yeah Baby!  How good is that?!

I told those tumours they were wasting their time hanging about and I am taking this as evidence that they have been listening and reassessing their landing page!  It is wonderful to read the line in the report that said ‘There are no obvious focal uptake abnormalities in the brain’!!  Let’s hope no un-obvious ones decide to make an uninvited guest appearance.  They’d be about as welcome as a Harvey Weinstein type right now!

There’s more.  The bone marrow biopsy did not show any active Myeloma in my blood or bone and, wait for it…my MRI did not show evidence of any new lesion/tumour.  Yee Ha!

I do have one caveat; I have some mild degenerative disc disease and loss of height and hydration between vertebrae in my spine; my back is looking a bit older than my years.  It is unlikely that I can particularly do anything to repair damage.  I can exercise and ensure by back remains strong, doesn’t antagonise the nerves around L5 and otherwise prevents my degeneration from becoming worse unnecessarily.  I will check with the physio about what else, if anything, may be possible.  It was also wonderful to read ‘the spinal cord returns a normal signal and the brainstem structure is normal’.

Being pragmatic, I am remembering that Myeloma is tricky.  It will come back.  It can also be a bit lazy and not show up at times in these results. It can take a rest or be working out how to manifest itself in a new way in my blood and bone.  HOWEVER, TODAY…

I’m looking on the bright side of life! (How many of you began singing this line? I can’t help myself)

A helpful position to launch from; I start 18 more months of Chemo this week – the maintenance phase on the clinical trial.  Let’s see what this brings.

This is infinitely easier to do with wonderful friends, family, readers, well wishes and my so far ‘beyond amazing’, hubby.  I appreciate all of you.  I really do.

February 2017

December 2017

THANK YOU.

BRING ON 2018.

Acknowledgements

Images; Hands by M & T. Me (February) by Dad. Me (December) by Me.  Thank you image by Tumiso @ Creative Commons (free for commercial use, no attribution required); 

© 2018 Janine Hayward www.psychingoutcancer.com.  All rights reserved.

Posted in Psychology for Cancer, Results Tagged with: Biopsy, Cancer, Fatigue, Good News, MRI, Pet Scan, Results, Thank you

48

What a year! I turned 48, I was diagnosed with cancer and I’ve completed 48 chemo sessions. I love the number 48; it seems so symmetrical to me (I love a bit of symmetry).  Now ‘48’ has a WHOLE new world of associations!

Warning…I have happy news, and, I’m going to talk about toilet rituals.

First, the rituals.  

This may seem very strange to those of you who have always been super careful about hygiene when using public loos.  In my defence, I have rarely worried about these things because my childhood in New Zealand was filled with non-traditional toilet arrangements. When you are fortunate enough to spend all day at the beach or walking in the bush or driving long stretches of deserted road or camping in remote sites you tend to get over yourself quite quickly about going to the loo wherever and however.

Doing your business quickly behind a tree, rock, or in a smelly long drop with minimal paper or alternatively leaves or seaweed, is not that unusual.  Worrying about being seen was always a bit more bothersome than worrying about bugs, microbes or possible infections!  The upshot is; I have never worried about using public loos, ‘catching anything’ or having to use disinfectant.  I just focussed on washing my hands well.

Now that my immune system is compromised it’s another story completely….though maybe I’m being a bit anal? (pun intended)

In the Chemo Day Unit, patients are asked to ‘wipe the loo’ with anti-bacterial wipes before and after use.  I recently discovered I had developed a wee ritual…Take a wipe, clean toilet seat, fold dirty side in, use clean side to wipe toilet handle, tap, hand wash dispenser, door lock, door handle. Dispose of wipe in bin.  Use loo.  Wash and dry hands properly – you know the 8-10 step process (depending on the poster).  Take new wipe and clean toilet.  Goodness knows what bugs I could pick up if I didn’t do this; don’t tell me!

Anyway, this is a new ritual in my life and once again one that seems to consume a little more of my available time and life though hopefully is worth it.  It seems so, so far, as I have yet to pick up any major nasties despite lower immunity and chemotherapy for 9 months now.  This ritual has now made its way out of the hospital and into public conveniences.  AM I being anal?  I’ll let you be the judge!

My News

…is happy, positive and hope-FULL…I’m very grateful for it and its effect; a reaffirmation of my faith in my medical team, the drugs and my health and life choices.  The Myeloma presence in my body has decreased further in the last few months… It’s down to 1 g/l (42 g/l at its peak) and a may be yet to plateau.  Yee ha!  Not only that, the serum kappa light chain results are 1.75 mg/l, backing up this great news and described as  ‘excellent’ by Dr L.  On top of that my liver is doing well. My Hb (Haemoglobin, the protein found in the red blood cells that carries oxygen around) level is back up to 121 g/l so I no longer need to consider taking EPO (yes, the cheaty cyclists’ drug of choice! I’m a tad disappointed.  I had wanted to experience how energised I’d feel!) While 121 g/l is lower than the desired normal levels (125 g/l plus) it is great for someone with Myeloma. My kidneys are also doing OK for someone with Myeloma, my Creatinine is 69 umol/L and normal level for women is approx. 45 -90 umol/L (I think; there seems to be some debate!).  Lots of good, great news, here. Dr L delivered these details and then reminded me to keep drinking 2-3 litres of water today for kidney care.  I imagined my kidneys; bloated, water-logged, bean-shaped balloons, wrapped up in clouds of cotton wool, floating about, relaxed and without a worry in the world.

I’ve had yet another bone marrow biopsy and pet scan (what effect does three doses of radioactive sugar chasing gunk in a year have on one’s body? I guess I’ll find out!).  I have an ear numbing full body MRI coming up in a fortnight.

Let’s hope they show (or don’t show lesions at all) that lesions are further dissolved and there are no new uninvited guests!!

What a year.

48.

One number I’ll never forget.

Acknowledgements

Images: Me (graphs va KCH), Long Drop – Sarang (public domain use permission granted)

© 2017 Janine Hayward www.psychingoutcancer.com.  All rights reserved.

Posted in Chemotherapy for Myeloma, Myeloma Treatment, Results Tagged with: Bone Marrow Biopsy, Chemotherapy, Myeloma, Results, Tests, Treatment