So I went back to the doctor today and got my chemo schedule. I’m getting 3 cycles of BEP (which is Bleomycin, Etoposide & Cisplatin). This will go over the course of 9 weeks, so my summer is pretty much done.
I have a lot of tests and things I have to go through in the next week or so, and then I start the chemo on July 7…
So the waiting is over. I have to get chemo. I'll find out more (like when and for how long) on tuesday.
Oddly enough, when I got the phone call yesterday I actually felt better. The uncertainty was over. The results were crappy, but at least I now know.
Today though it has started to sink in and I feel a little sad. This is going to royally fuck up my summer…
Well I still have to wait another week to find out what's going on with me…
On monday june 2, my family doctor left me a message saying that the results of the CT scan I had on may 28 showed an enlarged lymph node. So I had week of anxeity until my appointment with my oncologist on june 9. Monday comes and she tells me it is a cause for concern and she will present my case to the tumour board for a recommendation, the following wednesday. So I get another week plus of anxeity and waiting again…
It would be so much easier if they could just tell me I have to have surgery or chemo instead of all this waiting…
I have to admit the waiting is getting to me, I don't know how I'm going to make it to next wednesday.
To make matters worse I have two midterms in the next week. I find it hard to study usually, let alone with the worries I have on my mind recently…
It feels like weight pressing down on me…
I’m still waiting for my brake lights to get fixed, so I thought I would post here.
I like baseball. Even though it was freezing cold last weekend I sat in Safeco field with my Dad to watch the Mariners beat the White Sox 6-3. When I go to Vegas I always bet on baseball too.
For the last couple of years my Dad and I have gotten 6 game packs of tickets to Mariners games. This year we got tickets to the Red Sox game on Monday May 26, but my advanced accounting class is the same night. So no Red Sox for me this year… : (
Still, I will get to see the:
Detroit Tigers, June 1
Washington Nationals, June 15
New York Yankees, September 7
Oakland Athletics, September 27
This weekend I am driving to Edmonton with my Dad and my nephew Joel. I’m not exactly looking forward to it.
Still, I guess I will get to see the West Edmonton Mall, which I’ve never been to before.
So I'm overdue for an update here.
I'm waiting in Langley for my tires to be rotated. It is taking 2 hours because the Costco tire centre is super busy. I should have gotten up earlier this morning.
Now I'm at Fatburger spending $10.78 on lunch, even though I really need to cut back on my spending. The last couple of weeks I have been spending way way too much money. Partly because Vegas is expensive, partly because I have very little self control when it comes to buying stuff.
Vegas was good. I stayed at the Tropicana (which actually declared bankruptcy today), spent a few days sitting in the summer by the pool. Drank like a fish some nights. Attended a Vegas wedding. Ate a lot. Spent more money than I should have.
After I got home from Vegas I spent an awesome Saturday going to Free Comic Book Day at 2 comic book stores, went to Science World, Granville Island, and then saw Iron Man.
Ah, my burger is here, gotta go…
My Personality
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| You feel enraged when things do not go your way. You are sensitive about being treated fairly and feel resentful and bitter if you think you are being cheated, however you tend to lack energy and have difficult initiating activities. You are not prone to spells of energetic high spirits. You are not interested in the arts and do not display aesthetic sensitivity. You are willing to take credit for good things that you do but you don’t often talk yourself up much, however you believe that a certain amount of deception in social relationships is necessary. You are guarded in new relationships and less willing to openly reveal the whole truth about yourself. You are a reasonably organized person and like to have a certain amount of routine in your life. |
Well I felt like posting, so here I go.
I booked two trips to Vegas. I’m heading there April 28 to May 2 and staying at the Tropicana. And then I’m heading down again July 31 to August 4 and staying at the Mirage.
School is crazy right now, tons of stuff due in the next couple of weeks, and then final exams…
I’m not sleeping too well lately, I still have a lot of anxiety over cancer coming back… I have my next surveillance check up on April 3. I’m still worried because the statistics say that I have a probability of relapse somewhere between 30-50% and if it were to happen it would occur within the next two years, most likely within 6 months. So, those numbers are the root cause of my anxiety and sleep difficulties. You try sleeping while worrying that a headache, back ache, or any other changes in my body are due to cancer growing and spreading inside of me…
In other news, I did a firearms safety course the other week. I’m just waiting on my possesion and acquistion license.
Today I bought a breathalyzer on eBay, which should be interesting when it arrives.
And I actually, finally, unpacked some boxes today…
So, after meeting with my oncologist today I found out I’m getting the surveillance option.
Basically once a month I will be getting blood tests to check my tumor markers, every second month I will be getting a chest x-ray to ensure my lungs stay tumor-free, and every third month I will undergo the not-so-fun CT scan to make sure my lymph nodes stay normal size.
Although it will be a pain in the ass to have to go around and get these tests done and then go to the Cancer Centre every month, it seems like less of a pain than chemotherapy or lymph node surgery.
I thought my anxiety would be much better right now, but it’s only marginally better. I think after I see the results of my first blood test I will start to feel more optimistic about everything.
Also, I was checking and all of last year there were a total of 99 cases of testicular cancer in BC. I mean more people probably won some type of decent sized prize in the lottery than got testicular cancer. WTF?
Oh well, life goes on….
Well, I haven’t done a real update in a while, but this time it’s not because my life is boring…
So on Friday February 1 I go to the Doctor because I had noticed a small lump on my testicle a couple of weeks early, I didn’t really think that much about it other than I should get it checked out. My appointment with the Doctor is first thing in the morning, he takes a look at it and says I need to go see a specialist that same day. I was working that day so I have to leave work and go to this specialist. He says that I need to get an ultrasound as soon as possible and gives me 50/50 odds that it will have to come out. Now right after hearing that I have to go back to work, which as you can imagine was more than a little difficult…
Monday morning rolls around and I go into the hospital for an ultrasound. Now this is very uncomfortable for me. I have this female technician handling my boys checking them for solid masses. She checks the left one (non-lump one) first and keeps saying things like “that looks good” and “that’s fine”. She then starts to check the right one and gets oddly quiet. I know something is seriously wrong at this point. She finishes up and says I can go and that I will hear from my doctor in about two days.
I make the drive home and make it up to my bedroom and I get a phone call from my doctor. The radiologist had called him right after I left. I go into his office and he basically tells me it’s gotta come out. They give me some forms and I go back to the hospital for the second time that day and get a chest x-ray as well as give them some of my blood to take a look at. Thursday I’m going in for surgery.
It all happened so fast that I didn’t even have time to process everything. Before I knew it thursday came and into the hospital I go. They take out one of my little friends and send me home that night. I now have a rocking scar right below my waist where they cut me open to take out my boy. Of course I have to start moving on sunday, so I have a pretty chaotic week ahead of me.
Tuesday I have to go back to the hospital to get a CT scan. They make me drink three glasses of water with some type of contrast dye in it, hook me up to an IV and shoot more dye through my veins and run me back and forth through a machine to scan my insides. By the way, when they shoot the dye through your veins it’s warm and you feel like you peed your pants.
The next tuesday (Feb. 19) I go back to the doctor and he tells me that my x-ray, blood tests, and CT scans didn’t show anything but he hasn’t gotten the pathology report back from the hospital that would say exactly what was in my testicle that they took out. I go to school and get a phone call from him a few hours later. He tells me that it was cancer, and that it was an embryonal carcinoma and that I will have to follow up with the BC Cancer Agency for any further treatment.
Yesterday I finally got my appointment with the BC Cancer Agency. So March 5 I will finally have some idea what will happen next with me. The anxiety over this is worse than anything else…
If you want to know a little more, the BC Cancer Agency web page has some information on testicular cancer here:
http://www.bccancer.bc.ca/PPI/TypesofCancer/Testes/default.htm