Alpha....Bravo....Victor....David

"Most people think life sucks, and then you die. Not me. I beg to differ. I think life sucks, then you get cancer, then your dog dies, your wife leaves you, the cancer goes into remission, you get a new dog, you get remarried, you owe ten million dollars in medical bills but you work hard for thirty-five years and you pay it back and then -- one day -- you have a massive stroke, your whole right side is paralyzed, you have to limp along the streets and speak out of the left side of your mouth and drool but you go into rehabilitation and regain the power to walk and the power to talk and then -- one day -- you step off a curb at Sixty-seventh Street, and BANG you get hit by a city bus and then you die. Maybe." - Denis Leary

Well that about sums it up doesn't it??  

Got my first ever case of pink eye 48 hours ago.  My body is at its "nadir," what's that you ask??  In good time young padawan, but lets first discuss this thing called "combination therapy."

Mass destruction is a great way to describe chemo.  Prior to this little adventure I had no idea what cancer was or what its treatment was like.  What you end up learning is that chemotherapy is not a very precise science.  It is an interplay of chemicals designed to kill the cancer before those same chemicals kill you. 

Chemotherapy stems from the United States Dept. of Defense investigating the effects of chemical warfare.  CHEMICAL FRIKKIN WARFARE!!!!  Autopsies were done to determine the mechanism of death in chemical warfare victims and through that research, cancer treatments were born.  Chemotherapy is quite a statement about the human condition though, out of the desire to kill as many humans as possible comes the science designed to keep alive as many humans as possible.

The first ever treatment was in 1942 when scientists used "nitrogen mustard," a derivative of mustard gas, to treat a patient with lymphoma.  The treatment was effective in suppressing the lymphoma and wahlah!! chemotherapy was born.  The term "combination therapy" is used to describe chemotherapy with multiple drugs because one drug just won't do it.  They need to bombard you with drugs from all angles to really root out the cancer.  

So how does it work??

Cancer cells are really greedy, maniacal little bastards.  Every cell in your body has a mechanism in its DNA to shut it down and kill it if it doesn't reproduce and proliferate properly.  Cancer cells have the ability to shut that mechanism down, they continue to reproduce and spread even though they are defective.  Sort of like little rabbits living inside of you, their only intent is to eat, screw and reproduce.  So how can you get rid of rabbits??  You can trap them, much like cutting out a tumor, or you can poison them, much like chemotherapy.  So they take the cancer cell's natural tendency, eating, and use it against itself.  Once it eats the chemo, it dies, but so does every other cell in your body that eats the chemo.  Many of the side effects of chemo are because it is killing your good cells in an attempt to kill the bad ones.  Nausea, for example, is due to your stomach lining needing to consistently reproduce itself to keep you healthy.  Chemo attempts to destroy the lining, there by making you sick to your stomach.

The chemo I am on is:

• (A) Adriamycin
• (B) Bleomycin
• (V) Vinblastine
• (D) Dacarbazine

This is given on a 14 day treatment schedule, and 2 treatments equates to 1 cycle of chemo.  I will receive a total of 6 cycles, 12 treatments, over the next 180 days.  

ABVD was initially tested in the mid-70's to enhance the long term prognosis over traditional treatments at the time.  It really didn't do any good to treat a person just to have them develop leukemia or secondary cancers over the next few years following treatment.  

So what is this chemo like??  Well, I'll tell you.

Day 1:  Get hooked up, watch all sorts of witchcraft enter your body.  Takes about 2 hours, and after about 3 or 4 hours you start to feel it.  You are just completely off, not like the flu, not like anything I had experienced before.  An extremely unnatural sickness takes you, headache, stomach cramps, they told me I may get a fever, but my temperature bottomed out to hypothermia levels.  Then at about 8:30 I just completely shut down and needed to sleep.

Day 2:  More of Day 1.  On day 2, you begin to rehash all the stupid stuff you did with your chemo brain on day 1.  I wasn't confused, but processing information is difficult at best and down right scary at worst.  The chemo brain thing is very real with me, simple tasks sometimes require planning and a slow methodical step by step process to ensure completion.

Day 3:  Not a bad day at all.  Went something like this:  Wake up...sleep....wake up....sleep....pee....sleep....computer work...sleep...eat....sleep...then go to bed.

Day 4:  See day 3.

Day 5:  Now things are turning around, I was able to stay up past 9 pm, I think I made it until 10 pm.  Still with the stomach cramps, headaches gone, not too tired, but absolutely no reserves to tap if needed.

Day 6:  Stomach cramps, but not a bad day.  Just don't get too excited and think it is behind you.  

Day 7:  No white blood cells (nadir point), no platelets, a giant living breathing pitri dish.  Chem destroys your WBC's and you are seriously vulnerable to infection.  If you develop a fever over 100.4, the hospital stay is coming next. 

Day 8:  PINK EYE!!!!!!!!  Then I'm told that the pink eye could lead to a much bigger infection and I need to watch it closely.  Really?? I could go to the hospital for pink eye??  YEP!!  Thankfully my fever did not go over 99.6 and the infection did not spread to anywhere else.  The topical antibiotics really did their job.  

Day 9 through 14:  Stay away from large crowds, sick kids and wash your hands often and things will be good.  Feeling good so that means treatment number 2 is just around the corner, then it's back to Day 1.

So there you have it, this will be my next 5.5 months, lather...rinse...repeat...11 more times.