May 23rd, 2016

Radiation, complete! This second stint of radiation therapy has been far easier than the first. I'm preemptively avoiding acidic foods to stave off heartburn, but that has been very mild. The only other side-effects have been a slight crinkling in my lower left lung from a little fluid around the lung, and a tightness in my chest on occasion. It could be heartburn, or a minor irritation of the heart itself. I suspect the latter. At any rate, nothing like the debilitating stomach irritation from my first radiation treatment has shown up, nor should it. Everything has been, all things considered, calm and manageable, and the minor side effects I am experiencing go unnoticed most of the time and should resolve themselves in a few weeks.

Next up comes a pretty low-dose, maintenance type of chemotherapy. I can't exactly say I'm looking forward to it, but it should be pretty straightforward and simple. We plan on doing that here in Corning, since it is only one day each week of infusions. Once we see how the first round goes we'll be able to figure out what comes next for us. If all proceeds as smoothly as expected, the next step for us is probably to find work here in Corning. Of course there's always a chance my books will start selling more, or I'll find a publisher for the series I'm working on currently, but for now working at least part time seems like the most likely candidate. We also have relatives across the continent we want to visit, and, in an ideal world, more national parks to visit as well (I've somehow never been to Glacier or Denali, for example). There's no shortage of options. For now though, I have the week off before I start chemo on the 31st, which works out great because, somehow, in two days it will be our 3rd anniversary.

That's three years of marriage and over a year and a half since my diagnosis. It's weird that I've had cancer for over half our marriage now. In some ways it seems like only a day or two ago we sat eating Domino's pizza in a Super 8 in New Jersey the evening before my first meeting with the team at MSKCC. It just does not feel like over half our marriage has involved hospitals, surgery, chemo, and more. I suppose partly that's because we knew each other for several years before we got married. But when I look back on the last year and a half the recollections that come most readily to my mind are not the sickness of chemo and radiation, the pain of recovering from surgery, the side effects of treatment and the side effects of the drugs to reduce the first side effects.

Rather, I remember more the fun we've had. The football, baseball, and most especially the hockey games, the Bronx Zoo, the Lion King on Broadway, and general exploring of NYC are all great memories, but even more I remember the quiet, more normal moments; sitting and reading in our favorite spot in Central Park, watching Parks and Recreation, figuring out how these newfangled things called 'videogames' work, writing a blog post or chapter in my next book while Christina journals, roasting marshmallows around a campfire surrounded by snowy mountains in Sequoia National Park (alright, maybe that isn't 'normal,' but it should be!). I guess, to make a long story short, it doesn't seem like cancer has taken up over half our marriage because quite simply it hasn't. We haven't let it. While it's certainly messed up a lot of things for us, it has also given us way more time together than we would have had otherwise. For that I am immensely grateful.

P.S. since I know you read this, Happy Anniversary Christina!

May 15th, 2016

I'm halfway done with radiation! Only five more days to go. So far so good, with no real side effects to speak of. Heartburn, etc. should start next week sometime. So we'll figure that out when we get to it. For now we've been having fun taking advantage of what NYC has to offer. In the last week we went to our first Yankees game, the World Trade Center memorial, Battery Park, High Line Park, Chelsea Market, Central Park, The Met, and probably other things I can't remember. My sister visited, I met up with a childhood friend I hadn't seen in way too long, and now another friend is visiting for the weekend. It's been a busy, good week, all things considered.

April 25th, 2016

I got three new tattoos today. Three more dots to help line me up precisely for my next round of radiation. They were able to use three old tattoos from my previous radiation in October, so that saved some time in the initial preparations for radiation. Which is how, unexpectedly, I am back in Corning already. We flew in this morning expecting to stay for maybe a few days, until the radiology team at MSKCC could see me for the scan, and tattoo setup appointment. Perhaps, I thought, I'd just stay in NYC for a few weeks, through all of my radiation treatment. I brought a suitcase, backpack, and tote bag full of everything I'd need for an extended stay. But they somehow had an opening in their schedule just an hour after we saw my main radiation doctor! And, just as incredibly, there were two open seats on the flight back that afternoon! The corporate angel flight program has been absolutely wonderful for us, and we are so grateful to have that option for transportation. Other than hauling around a bunch of unnecessary luggage, today went as smoothly as could be reasonably imagined.

Meeting with the head radiology doctor is always encouraging. Her optimism, knowledge, and confidence are certainly reassuring. Interestingly, I was told that they rarely got "this far" until recently, meaning that getting the abdomen clear in cases like mine was, not long ago, very difficult and uncommon. Now, she said, they see many more cases where the abdomen gets cleared of all cancer, but some spots show up in the chest. Everyone seems pretty confident though that, with the surgery to remove the spots in my chest done, and with radiation coming up soon to zap where those nodes were in case anything got left behind, I have a pretty good chance of having my chest all clear. We'll keep working, praying, and hoping for the best, while embracing the reality of this tremendously lethal and tenacious disease. For now, we keep going one day at a time, remembering to make the most of it while we can.