Cancer Selfies

Chemo course three over

Cycle 12, Day 5

This one collects a whole month of photos.

I'm glad this round of treatment is done. I'm exhausted, I'm so sick of feeling sick all the time. It feels like the side effects (best case scenario, side effects) never really leave. I'm so run down. I need a break - a real break. And I kind of get one.

I feel good this afternoon, not great, but good. I had something called hydration yesterday. For me, it's a litre of IV saline over four hours. Hydration keeps me up all night, because I need to use the bathroom. The need to use the bathroom keeps me on the edge of sleep. Last night was all nightmares. This afternoon, I've recovered. I'm tired, but I went grocery shopping.

The break I get is from chemotherapy. I need a break from it, my body needs to recover. If I don't take a break, my quality of life will get too low and, eventually, I'll refuse treatment. I want a long break. Last time I had roughly six months. My oncologist doesn't want me to take that long. Every day I'm not receiving treatment, I'm losing ground to the cancer. It's the worst optimization problem I've ever had to think about.

I talk to my current oncologist for likely the last time in mid May. It'll take a few weeks to get me fully transfered to an oncologist in Sudbury. And a few more weeks after that to schedule treatment. That's likely what my break looks like. The six month break did very little to reduce the intensity of the side effects I was feeling. It was almost as if no time had passed. I've had a hard time making myself go to treatment for the last few months. I think I'm likely to refuse further treatment before the cancer spreads somewhere serious. I'm not there yet, though.

I don't get a break from life, though. I don't have nearly as much as I used to left, and I'm going to get rid of even more, but I packing is still exhausting. Now that I'm off chemo, I'm hoping I recover some of the energy I used to have so I can get stuff done.

From the comments

James Petrosky: My hair hasn't started to come back yet, but the facial hair really has. I'll take the small victories, even if the texture is different than it used to be

Mortality

I reflected on this on September 4, 2024

This is the anniversary of when I started this album. I'm not sure what I thought I was doing then, but eventually I found my comfort zone relating my experiences with the medical system - the administrative side and the treatment side. This was a comfortable place through chemotherapy, and honestly an exciting one for me to be in through surgery. But I've struggled a bit since then.

I thought it was just that surgical recovery was boring (and it is), but chemotherapy was the same two week cycle sixteen times, and I never felt this way about it. I still talk nonstop about my cancer, as any of you who know me in person, or are in the same Facevook groups, can attest. But I haven't been able to figure out this place.

I think the reason is that, in light of my failed surgery and prognosis, the only place it made sense for me to go was do the same kind of day by day thing, but instead of it being about getting the full cancer trearment experience at 35, it's about grappling with mortality at 36 and, statistically, dying at 37.

Mental health wise, I'm just coming down from a minor hypomanic episode and feel stable, bipolar wise. My lithium levels are good. If asked how I'm doing, I'd truthfully answer "good, given the circumstances," but I can't tell you if that means I'm doing good.

I'm not an actor, though, when you see a look of delight on my face, that's real. I do have an actual notebook with an actual list of neat stuff to do and I am actually crossing things off on all my little adventures. I'm getting out and experiencing the world. Probably doing way more than I ever would have if I remained otherwise healthy, too, which is a thought too terrifying to contemplate.

To end, because it's been haunting my dreams and hopefully sharing will help, if someone, someday, talks about my death bed conversion, know that they are a disgusting fiend who takes advantage of the vulnerable to glorify themselves. If disease progression or treatment leaves me vulnerable earlier than that, same logic applies. These people were never able to convince me so far, I doubt they'll come up with something compelling in the next few years. I doubt I'm interesting or notable enough to receive this treatment, but I know it happens, so I know I'm not 100% unreasonable in my fears.

From the comments

James Petrosky: 37 is an estimate. I don't want anyone who knows me well enough to start doing math on my birthday and panicking. 38 is probably a better estimate, but 37 fits the flow a lot better, and it's all statistics based on regular colon cancer anyways

James Petrosky: I want to dramatically say "from here on in its all about death" but honestly it's been that way for a while. You have no idea how happy the "thinking about death" joke in Barbie made me, because a) it was funny, and matched my mental state perfectly and b) gave me a lot of cover to joke about it all summer. So thank you, Uncontrollable Thoughts of Death Barbie, you're a life saver.

James Petrosky: Somewhat related to liars for Jesus are liars for other spiritual causes. Mediums, channelers, seyances, ghost hunters, it's all evidence free nonsense, and they do tremendous harm to people undergoing grief by giving them a false hope that can never, ever be realized. If there is somehow an afterlife that can communicate back to the living, I promise you I'll never, ever give these dangerous frauds the time of day. I can be a stubborn person, and this is the thing I'm most stubborn about, so you can be sure I'll hold to it.

Because we live in something approaching a techno dystopia, it's possible to train a large language model on someone's social media history to create a computer program that can write and speak like you can. Maybe there's not enough information available for me. Almost certianly I'm not important enough for this treatment. But if this is done, and it's done well enough to be convincing, the output program is also not me. It's just an actor, playing a role. The same as a spiritualist, they just learn their script from different sources.

VLog: September 2st, 2023

Balm Beach weekend part 2 (antiquing in Barrie (not Balm Beach)).