Today was a day of staying home taking stock of the body.

As I said earlier, everything has a new meaning. Are those stomach cramps? Or just gas? Am I having diarrhea? Or headed for constipation? While these sound like diametrically opposite directions, it is really hard to tell at times.

I barely slept last night, which meant spending a bit of time in bed today trying to make up for things.

And taking stock.  Not being an alarmist. At one point, I thought my unit had come unplugged. I moved in bed and felt a sharp pain. I yelled for Janet to come up. She did not hear me. I used my cell to phone home and yelled at her to come up. She was breathless when she got to the bedroom. I do not have a clear view of my upper chest, and since I thought I was unplugged, did not dare move.

False alarm. The tubes had come undone, not from my Porta-Cath, but from the tape that held them fast to my chest, hence the sharp pain. It took a while to calm down from that one.

The major things to look out for are diarrhea, nausea, and mouth sores. Oh yeah, also keep away from sharp objects. No kissing, no sharing of glasses or utensils, or tasting food from other plates. I am buying a bubble.

Janet tells me the nurse at the cancer clinic was a tad alarmed when Janet said something about going to a restaurant for dinner. With all those other people around just waiting to infect you? I am going to be one of those people who walks around wearing a mask.

Can’t see it, somehow.

I am a Baha’i. Not as active as I could be but a Baha’ i nonetheless.

As such, we believe in God, and prayers. I wrote my brother at some point saying that I do fnd it peculiar that we take solace in praying to God for healing and protection when He is the one who put us in this predicament in the first place.

I have received a lot of eMails from friends and relatives in support. All are wonderful and extremely welcome. Those who are aware of my religious convictions, and have one of their own remember me in their prayers. Others remember me in their thoughts.

I find the wordage interesting. Talking about religion has become so taboo, which makes me sad. We are more prepared to talk about Freud and Jung than we are to talk about religion.

And yet it is religion, warts and all, that has had a greater influence on our lives and laws.

Your prayers and thoughts are working overtime. Keep them coming.

We showed up at 2:30 to a roomful of people waiting. Turns out that they had 120 people in for treatments as opposed to the usual number which is a lot lower. Interestingly, they provide you with pagers if you want to go for a walk or something.

We were called in around 4, and prepped for the plug in. Sherron, the nurse, was flitting back and forth between the myriad of patients. All the beds and chairs were full. She finally settled on looking after me. She was quite delightful, if overworked.

She opens a large enveloppe and places it on the table next to me. In it are a set of latex gloves. She then opens a bunnch of other stuff, needles, and whatevers and empties the contents onto the open enveloppe. She washes her hands and puts on the latex gloves, at which point, she can not touch anything. She is now working in a steryle environment. A needle is pushed into the Porta-Cath and the intravenous bags are connected to it.It was all very quick.

Turns out that the bags contained saline solution to flush the system. Soon after though, the first of the drugs was connected to the system. The combination is Irinotecan and Leucovorin. The latter is used to “increase the activity of the anticancer drug F5-Fluorouracil”. Now you know, so stop complaining.

Irinotecan, pronouced IRRITANT, is more complicated. OK, so it is not pronounced irritant though you gotta admit it sounds better than the real pronunciation.

What taking these drugs pointed out is that we now have to be vigilant about everything. Nothing is normal. I started breaking out in a sweat. I said to Janet, is it me, or is hot in here? The nurse comes by and I ask her the same question. Are you sweating, she asks? Yeah, kinda. That is one of the side effects of the Irritant. As are stomach cramps. Is that I am also dizzy? OK, time for an injection to stop the coming nausea and all this stuff that is happening.

From now on, everything matters. We have to watch out for, and in no special order, diarrhea, mouth sores, stomach cramps, excessive urinating, high temperatures, wheezing, difficulty breathing, skin rashes. I am not sure I have left anything out, or that I can add anything to the list either. How about hiccups?

We have to keep baking soda near every sink. I have to take a rinse before and after every meal. After brushing my teeth with a soft toothbrush.

They sent us home after connecting me to the F5 bottle wihich lookks dangerously like a baby bottle. So I am wired yet again like a borg. It is going to make sleeping interesting. Trying Gravol tonight to make me drowsy. I cannot exactly roll around or anything. Only two nights. Only two nights. The community nurse is coming on Saturday to unplug me and remove all the wires. No showers till then.

No sharp objects either. A cut is not a good thing.

As expected, the anxiousness of the past few days is history, now that we are in the centre of it all. Time to move forward and start meditation classes and whatever else I can do to make this easier.

Just for the record, I have been offered pot from just about everybody. At this rate, I could open my own business. One friend said I should under no circumstance do Canadian pot since it will probably kill me. So far, no inclination to go in that direction, though I do thank everyone for their generosity.

I dislike the term Cancer survivor. I know I am going against the grain here. But it sounds so defeatist. You survived. And what happens when the cancer returns? You have to come to terms with it again, at the end of which, you will again claim survival.

We survive tsunamis, and while cancer can be compared to some sort of tsunami that goes on inside the self, I would think that we should not be happy with mere survival.

Before the operation, Janet and I decided we should use the term conqueror. But I am not happy with that either.

One of the last things the book AntiCancer points out is that we should not use the term fight to describe our relationship with cancer. I thought about that for a while. It makes sense. If we all have cancer in our bodies, then what are we fighting? Our own bodies? Does not make sense. Specially if one of the cancer helpers is stress. Fighting creates stress. Fighting cancer which is thriving in my body therefore, increases my stress which only helps the cancer.

By no means do I prescribe pacifism or a laissez-faire attitude. But fighting is surely the wrong way to think.

Cancer survivor, or conqueror are both terminologies of war or a warlike mind. Neither is healthy as a mind set in the best of circumstances, let alone when dealing with cancer.

Our whole system is based on a contrarian nature. We are fighting all the time, whether it is the weather, as in fight the snow storm, or fight the cop who is giving you a ticket. We fight the system. The boss. The partner. The taxman. The court system is based on two parties fighting one another. None of it does anybody any good. More would be achieved through cooperation.

In all these situations, you are fighting something external to you. In the case of cancer, you are fighting something internal. You are fighting yourself.

Peace and harmony should be the goal. Bring harmony to the body and mind. Bring peace to your spirit or soul. Meditate. Pray. Sing songs. Do whatever it takes, but don’t fight.

We do need a statement that would let people know that we have had cancer, or still have it. A statement that makes us feel positive about our condition. We have to be vigilant and lead a life style that will help prevent its spread or return. Given that vigilence, we are not survivors or conquerors.

What are we then?

My opiate naive body reacts to yet another drug.

Half a pill is all I am supposed to take, and it is all I took. About an hour before going to sleep. I decided to also listen to Jacquie Gardner’s meditation CD on mindful breathing. It helped me a lot in the hospital.

My leg jumps when I try to sleep. I Googled it under leg jumping or leg jiggling. It only happens after I have been lying in bed for about half-an-hour trying to sleep. I guess the body is telling me that I have run out of time. I usually get up and take a walk. Maybe eat something lite, and try to sleep again. This process may repeat itself several times until I finally pass out.

The drug started showing its colours pretty early. It is supposed to take effect in about an hour, but it does so a lot earlier. I feel all my limbs becoming heavier. No chance of any leg jumping, they were just too heavy. I fell asleep only to wake up an hour later. Janet has come to bed by now to keep me company. I go to the washroom barely able to open my eyes. I figure this is a good thing. But I am wide awake once back in bed.

Things take a twist. My arms start twitching like mad. I have a hard time explaining what happened. I appear to have something wiggling under my skin. My arms twitched and itched and jumped, totally out of control. Took between 5 and 10 minutes for the body to calm down. I started laughing. What else can you do? How allergic will I be to the drugs I am to take today before going to chemo?

I go down and watch television for a couple of hours. Back in bed around midnight. Fall asleep immediately. Wake up at 6 in the morning. Holly Molly! 6 hours of continuous sleep without a bathroom break. We will have to try this again.

Side effects of the drug are listed as:

• memory loss
• confusion
• drowsiness or dizzziness
• affect your appetite

Wikipedia has a sightly different selection of side effects. I think my reacton would be isted under paradoxical effects.

In answer to my cousin Ruja, the extra drugs are all pills. Actually 7 of them to take an hour before chemo starts. The chemo itself is a two drug present. I have the names somewhere, maybe in tomorrow’s post. Both will be connected to the Porta-Cath in my chest. The first is administered in the hospital where they will supervise me. The second is a 48 hour infusion for which I go home. Chemo starts today at 2:30.

I will of course, post on that as soon as I can.

The charming Dr. David Hedley is so reassuring and positive. We were there last Wednesday to see when the chemo would start. It is official, it starts tomorrow. Every one is so supportive. But truth be told, no one really knows what to expect. Everyone is different, and reacts differently. I guess future posts will [...]

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