Part 19

Part 19 The bracelet and the bear

Day one of treatment. I drive Brooke to her daycare, treasuring this experience, the normality of it. Driving off, I run my fingers through my scalp and notice more falling hairs. It is a bright, sunny day, but I am apprehensive about my first treatment. Or maybe it’s the shot. I put a colorful bracelet around my wrist that the kids made for me. In the back seat is my special bear they made for me that is to be my companion for each trip to treatment. After working until 9:30, I meet Becah and we drive to Kingwood. Dr. Bu- starts everything off poorly by surprisingly informing me with the news that I will receive chemotherapy and the experimental drug Erbotux each Wednesday in conjunction with radiation. The shot comes – actually not as bad as I feared (although I was prepped with a hydrocodeine pill and was given lydocaine to numb my stomach prior to injection). I enter the radiation room, trying to ignore all the warning signs posted on the walls of how unsafe the place is to certain persons with certain conditions. The techs greet me. I show them pictures of my children and tell them they must make all this work out right for my kids’ sakes. I lie on my back and the mask is placed over my face. I close my eyes. The first treatment begins. I hear sounds to my left, slowly arching to the right. A sensation of light accompanies the sound, like the sun moving over me. My right arm is still sore from holding it rigidly in place the day before. In about 25 minutes it is over. No pain. No discomfort that I cannot handle again and again and again. But I will think about each treatment one day at a time, never looking ahead at the number “30”, only looking back when I have accumulated enough sessions to make a dent.

I remember when I jogged up the bleachers at the high school stadium as part of my workout regimen. My way of handling the ordeal was to gaze straight ahead at the step I was on, refusing to look up at how many more I had to climb. I found this to be an effective strategy, allowing me to get through a task that I might otherwise find too imposing. If it worked under those circumstances, I suppose it could work under these.

At home, I enjoy a sandwich and find that my taste buds are just about normal. Our neighbor’s little girl comes over and asks me to re-string her guitar, which I enthusiastically do. Anything to fake business as usual.

The next morning continues to be chilly and clear. I take Brooke to daycare and play “Arizona” and “Silver Bird” by Mark Lindsey, two oldies that Bree always loved hearing and expected to hear each morning on her way to daycare. Brooke also will request these two many times on later mornings. I am ruminating on my appearance as I enter Kathy’s daycare when a parent unexpectedly complements me on my looking good. Driving to Kingwood for my second radiation treatment I pop in the gift CD by Peter Noone, and am invigorated by the energy and fun of the live recording. What I feared would be only a decent record by an aging former teen star turned out to be impressive and a real treat, no easy task for Peter in my current depressed state.

At the center I am informed by the nurse that I will be here longer today, well into the afternoon, receiving the additional drug Erbotux. In fact, they may need to break the sessions up into part today and the rest tomorrow (with required monitoring by my physician). The radiation session is fairly easy, with the only hassle being the lengthy time required for positioning me on the table. Afterward, I find myself sitting in a chair while strange medicines drip through the port in my upper chest and the TV is jabbering with “Deal or No Deal”, a game show that I am oddly interested in, probably because of the NFL stars in the audience and the fact that both the main contestant and emcee Howie Mandell are slick-headed bald (and looked great!). A man sitting beside me remarks to me that he had been given the same drug that I am receiving, casually noting that it caused some acne but little else. A lady’s cell phone goes off, playing “Ode to Joy”, adding a nice calming touch to the moment.

I read Wayne Dyer’s “There’s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem”, trying to fortify myself with religion and positive thinking to build my strength, not easy to do when Carnie Wilson is ranting on some new reality show that someone has flipped on. This followed by “Match Game 77”, remarkable only for the dubious seventies hair styles and a statement to these desperate times that find us forced to relive game shows that were lame decades ago and haven’t improved since. This is followed by “Lingo”, another game show with people looking very sci-fi and wearing sunglasses, with rapid fire commercials braking in so often that I want to scream “stop the madness!” After a one hour observation to make sure I’m okay, it is finally freedom at 4:00. After a meal of Mexican food at home I watch President Obama’s state of the union address but am distracted by my fear that I am starting to resemble Vice President Joe Biden (hair again). I read nursery rhymes and “Goodnight Moon” (one of our girls’ favorite books) to Brooke and have trouble getting to sleep due to a headache. I drift off occasionally but find myself wide awake from 2:45 to 4:00 and, giving up, simply get out of bed and walk into another room.

After work the next day I arrive for my third treatment to find the techs waiting for me, having had an earlier cancellation. In the sitting room afterward I receive more chemo, but I am managing to keep up my spirits even though it’s another 4:00 departure. The next morning I awake having had a surprisingly good sleep despite being briefly disturbed by an early morning storm. After driving Brooke to daycare I find it necessary to keep my hat on at work (despite the no hat policy – I figure they will cut me some slack on this one). Later, I watch Obama on CNN at the center while waiting for my radiation session, then receive a parting shot (literally) to improve my bone marrow strength before returning to the office. At home, a young neighbor dons my daughter’s boots and they dance around the house. The levity is short lived, though, because it is getting colder outside, my feeding tube is leaking, food is tasting strange again, more hair is falling out, and I have lost my wedding ring! I am devastated by this final strike, and I look everywhere in the house and even drive back to work, looking in my office and all over the parking lot. Finally I return home and glance on the den rug. There it is! I had been doing yoga exercises, and apparently my hands were getting so skinny that it slipped off.