Guess who's been in the ER all morning! When I finally get out of here I need to pick up a new laser pointer and some catnip because it was that friggin pizza that did it to me
From the Comments
James Petrosky: No idea what's wrong yet, should have realistically come in last night but I was too tired to make decisions. Have had an xray or two.
James Petrosky: I've been between 5-8 pain for 16 hours now and that's getting a bit exhausting
Mareile S. Håland: Dr Thomasin MD! 😮 She tried to warn you!
I made a pizza and Thomasin sat on me and now my pizza is cold and still largely uneaten. Cat law can be cruel
From the comments
James Petrosky: It doesn't make sense, it was Hawaiian, and lots of people may not like it, but it's her favourite. Normally the play would be to jump on me and steal a whole slice from the plate
James Petrosky: I can't even call her a criminal, she's being a law abiding citizen
Not even past the main chemo side effects and already consumed by moving anxiety. I coulda used a day, you know?
From the Comments
James Petrosky: Not looking for help quite yet, I'm going to do another purge pass first.
James Petrosky: Wish I hadn't been talked into hydration, it keeps the treatment train going until Sunday and I don't have the mental fortitude (but it's doctor's recommendations, so I'll try)
I'm home from the cancer centre. While I still have the bottle for the rest of the week, this is the end of this treatment series. It's the last time I'll visit the cancer centre. I have one final followup appointment before I transfer to a new oncologist.
I thought about ringing the bell as I left, and absolutely would have been welcome to, but it didn't feel like treatment was over, because it'll never be over, and couldn't do it. If I get another break, I hope I'll take my chance.
I'm a sentimental person. I cannot describe the confusion of emotions I'm feeling. The cancer nurses are some of the kindest people I've ever met, I hate that my health necessitated our meeting, last year I was so ready to say my goodbyes and never see any of them again because I was going to live, and now, after another very hard round of chemo, a much more bittersweet goodbye, with the promise of a new chemo centre and more difficult rounds of treatment.
From the comments
James Petrosky: I very rarely think about the R word (not that one, but I guess also that one), but I am today, and it isn't easy. I wish I could articulate it all better. But it's impossible.
James Petrosky: Frankly I'm being dramatic for the fun of it, the word remission has no special power.
Holly Kay: Love you cousin!
Rebecca Liddle Blair: In the work I do, I am often meeting people on not their best days or times; still, I am grateful for the experience and the time together. I’m guessing the nurses and care professionals that worked with you probably feel that way about working with you as well. It’s a different kind of relationship with complicated feelings to go along with it.
Brennan Moline: I am also a deeply sentimental person, despite my best efforts to avoid it. My parents still tease me about how I cried when they got rid of our old fridge or old car. When I left for college, I cried in the bathroom, hard. Sentimentality always felt like a curse.
Brennan Moline:I don't know that it is, anymore. I don't know how you feel about sentimental moments, but the fact that human connection can be so strong that we can miss it before it's gone feels both deeply beautiful and deeply sad.
Brennan Moline:I'm sorry I made this about me (part of me wants to delete this comment), but I feel what you're saying
James Petrosky: Brennan Moline my new experience is ending an interaction with a friend, both knowing it's the last time. My knew surreal experience is knowing that this is a skill, and one I'm going to get fairly good at fairly quickly. So long as I'm only a little awkward about it, I hope we can focus on the beauty in a strange and terrible situation.
James Petrosky: The way society handles grief and related emotions has never really worked for me. And I didn't outright say it, but this is all partially about grief. And for me, talking about grief in a personal and largely secular/nonreligious way is very important. Which may not have been your intent, but it's how it was taken.
Successfully found some medication! But now I'm at the hospital all day
From the comments
James Petrosky: Complication! Somehow my refill disappeared, even though the order couldn't have come in late if there wasn't a refill, this morning there is nothing to transfer. So here's hoping my oncologist is picking up today
Trying to arrange four days of hydration (which I usually refuse, but my oncologist wants me to do this time) but they've changed how its done since I got it in January.
From the comments
James Petrosky: It used to be all homecare, but now I have to go into a clinic once a day and disconnect it myself at the end of the day. And presumably make a second trip to the clinic Sunday for them to take out the connection to my port.
James Petrosky:
Friends, this is the only part of my care where I directly receive care from a private medical company. It's always the most frustrating and least human part of my treatment
A day of adventure! But uncharacteristically, I didn't take a lot of photos. The adventuring was centred around Goderich, Ontario (which is a pretty town with a beautiful Lake Huron waterfront, a roundabout at the centre of town with a courthouse in the centre, and some pretty waterfront industry (to my eyes), also a lighthouse which was on the todo list).
I met a friend for lunch in Fordwich (a tiny town I didn't know existed until yesterday). Then traveled to Goderich, then up to Kincardine where I met another lighthouse and experienced the sublime beauty of the world waiting for possibly the worst hot chocolate I've ever had. Finally I traveled to Hanover for dinner, which I had at a casino, so I guess I also visited my first casino today. I won by not playing.
Much more importantly, I saw so many cows (with their poodle sized calf), dozens of sheep with their little lambs, a field full of mini goats (a highlight of the day), many dogs and, a kilometer from home, a cute tabby cat.
I regret to inform you all that I still have not met a corgi.
I know there's no controlling when you're going to be struck by the beauty of the world and the finality of our mortality, but a Tim Hortons in Kincardine with a knock off Nickelback song playing is a touch ridiculous
(We later figured out the song must be That Song by Big Wreck)
From the comments
James Petrosky: I spent half an hour looking out over Lake Huron (main body, not Georgian Bay) for over half an hour, but of course things come over me in the dumbest and least interesting place I've been all day
Ëmmy Smäll: first of all I love all of this, second of all Huron is the only Great Lake I haven’t seen yet but lakes always put me in a place I couldn’t attempt to explain but I get it
James Petrosky: Ëmmy Smäll I was out in that part of the province to have lunch with a friend I hadn't seen in a while, and the beach spot was specifically recommended. It was worth an hour trip out of my way
James Petrosky: But then I wanted to see a lighthouse and ended up further out of my way in Kincardine
James Petrosky: So anyways I can check off "have a good cry in a Tim Hortons parking lot" from my list of required Canadian experiences
Carolyn Coney: James Petrosky an incredibly Canadian moment (tm)
Forgetting to eat a couple meals and then consuming an enormous amount of caffeine leaves me feeling high and uncomfortable and cold. 0/10 just get regular high
Apparently yesterday was some sort of bipolar disorder awareness day. I was pretty busy with a full day of scheduled existential crisis about mortality to notice.
All I've got to say is that we're fucking human, and you can get hyperfucked if you're still writing us like we're magic weirdos with intense mood swings. Especially if it's for a dumb meme, that dangerous misinformation will spread for years.
We're human. I'd love to have a conversation about what depression or hypomania feels like if you're curious, but all you alls simply must stop spreading medical misinformation first.
From the comments
James Petrosky: This sounds like a very specific call out. If is not. I didn't see any of my friends posting stuff like this. I did see lots of stuff like this in groups some of you frequent, though, and that's more than a little bit suspect
James Petrosky: bout me, though, and my mental health.
I don't talk about depression so much anymore. I still experience it, am still medicated and still speak to someone regularly about it. From a medical and quality of life point of view, I absolutely still experience it. But philosophically, is it still disordered if it's about an extremely real thing? Is it still depression when you are surrounded by proof of your impending mortality? Of the failure of all treatment options to accomplish anything beyond the bare minimum?
I don't know, and if you want to have a conversation about it you can find me at a bar outside the University of Waterloo most Wednesdays 2006-2009, because that's the time in my life for such discussions. Today whether it is or isn't depression doesn't matter (and I really mean that, I'm not looking for validation either), today is one of my extremely finite days, and I should make something of it regardless how I feel (although what is dependent on how pretty strongly).
James Petrosky: I've had some hypomania this treatment cycle. It's weird feeling so motivated to do things, and having the feeling of having energy, only to have it all come crashing down when the reality of a body ravaged by months of chemo becomes unavoidable. I still spent a week not sleeping, with a mind that wouldn't stop (only about 25% thoughts of death, so could be worse). Hypomania is only good in fiction, although it can be briefly enjoyable.
Chemo potentially affects all your hair. You don't grasp how much your eyelashes do to keep stuff out of your eyes until they're gone.
From the comments
James Petrosky: Had to pull off the road today (on the way to my chemo disconnect) because I was tearing up so bad. It happens a couple times a day, normally not when I'm driving, though.
The take home chemo bottle line has a clamp, which I'm to use to shut off flow if the line becomes disconnected, and a pump that has to be taped against my skin, because temperature controls rate.
Back in the PICC days, holding the pump in place was pretty easy. My forearms aren't particularly sweaty, so the silicone tape the nurses use holds pretty well, and I had my burn mesh securing everything in place. In the sixteen cycles I had with the PICC, I never had problems with the pump.
I have to wear a shirt to protect the port and line from Thomasin, and my torso is naturally pretty sweaty. The tape is constantly coming unstuck. The burn mesh acted as a strain relief, and I have nothing like that now, so on top of less effective tape, everything gets pulled out of place regularly. I should be fixing it every few hours, to ensure I receive all my medicine, but I make do when I wake up, or when I notice a problem.
The port is better in every way, much better for quality of life, but more annoying for actually receiving treatment. Which is pretty silly.
I leave for chemo at 1230 (4.5 hours from now). I have several chores to complete and two meals to eat and all I want to do is kitty cat nap time.
From the comments
James Petrosky: Anyways, no matter how hard I procrastinate I need to clean the litter box, it's much, much safer for me to do it when my immune system is stronger rather than tomorrow, when I'll be at least lightly immunocompromised.
It's been a while. I've lost all my hair. Visited the chemo suite a few times. And been significantly more active outside of my apartment than I was last year. It hasn't been easy, and it's been slow going, but we're more than half way to my next CT scan, which is still a major treatment milestone for me. Like last year, it's two groups of six cycles and a CT scan to complete this treatment plan.
I started this treatment plan with some digestive symptoms, a lot of nausea and vomiting, and a mild-medium pain in my right kidney. Digestive problems remain pretty constant, but the cause is chemotherapy, not cancer, now. At this point I can tell pretty easily. I still experience a fair amount of nausea, but it's limited to the treatment part of the cycle, a huge quality of life improvement. My kidney is doing better, and no longer causes discomfort, but will require monitoring for the rest of my life (it's part of my standard bloodwork, though).
We're back in the swing of things, the rhythm of treatment is normal again, and it feels as good as this sort of thing can.
They were giving me hydration, which is just IV saline water, to help flush the chemo out of my body after treatment. We don't know if I need it, but we gave it a go because of the kidney
You can see the line running from my port up to my jugular
Fancy dress, maximum hair extent
At the Big Nickle in Sudbury
Sometimes you've got to cuddle a cat to punish her a bit
My goose friend, Frigg
The beard is getting a little (a lot) patchy
A half volume beard is way itchier than a full one, it needed to go
I got tired of vaccuming more James hair than Thomasin hair, so it had to go
Christmas kitty
From the comments
James Petrosky:
Bonus Thomsin!
James Petrosky: It's harder for me to talk about things this time around. It's all so normal now. It's cycle three, but it's also cycle twentyish. I don't have anything new or interesting to say about chemotherapy. And we're not working towards something exciting, we're doing it all because it's part of the assumptions that go into the prognosis calculation. It's how I get my year. Which is hugely meaningful to me, and those around me, but it's not sexy like major surgery.
Human beings will adjust to anything.
After a month.5 break, I'm back to doing video blogs! There's no information in this one that I haven't talked about over here on Facevook, but it does have my voice and I cuss a bit, so it's not without its charms.
Lots more in suite side effects today. Had to pause treatment a few times. That's happened before, but never this much. I hope it's not a trend.
PICC's gone, though. They pulled all 20 some cm out all at once and I didn't even feel it. Once the access to the port has been removed, after the take home bottle has been removed and I'm through hydration, I can have my first plastic wrap free shower since September 14, 2023.
Hydration is just running saline through the port to help clear remaining chemo drugs from my kidneys. It's fairly a common part of treatment, I was just bouncing back quickly last time so it wasn't necessary.
