Epi(b)logue

Well, hello there.

It's been a little more than a year since I started this blog, and now seems as good a time as any to put a bow on this thing.

For every cancer-related appointment I've had, the hospital or Cancer Center gives you one of those paper wristbands. I've saved every single one that I've gotten (except for the very first one, which I threw out), so that you could see what a year worth of appointments looks like. Anyway, here it is:

Good. Now I can throw that shit away.

Anyway, when last we blogged, I had just come home from surgery and things were looking good.

All that stood between me and getting my old life back was eight sessions of chemotherapy. Then things got twisted.

Chemo was going fine, for a while. Around round five, though, things got a little hairy. The chemo, perhaps because it had no cancer to attack, turned itself on my central nervous system. I started having these regular blackouts (usually right after I went from sitting to standing) and, soon, my head was making dents on the floors of my house.

I saw oncologists and cardiologists and it was determined that the main culprit, along with rapid weight loss, was chronic dehydration, so I began a daily two-hour hydration regimen at the Cancer Center (with visiting nurses coming on the weekends to administer it from home). Things didn't get much better, however, and by round seven of chemo, I was feeling worse than at any other point during this past year.

I became profoundly depressed, as I assumed I would be on the upswing this far removed from surgery. I spent my birthday at the hospital, having recently conked my head on the bathroom floor during one of the blackouts. I dragged myself to the Cancer Center for my eighth and final chemo treatment, but week after week it was determined that I was in no shape to receive it. I was as low as I'd been throughout this whole awful year.

Finally, a light at the end of the tunnel appeared. My oncologist decided we should simply skip the eighth treatment and be done with this thing.

I almost hugged him, then remembered he was German and decided not to chance it.

Three weeks later, I'm on a major rebound. I'm still getting hydration every day, but the dizziness has all but disappeared and I'm usually able to walk from point A to point B without any damage. I'm sure that some of my bounceback is due to knowing that chemotherapy is over...that was like being unexpectedly released from prison. I assume.

So, what's next? Starting next week, we're going to start weening me off of the daily hydration to see how I feel. Then, and for the next five years or so, I'll get a CAT scan and a PET scan every three months to see if any cancer has returned. The scans will, obviously, be a harrowing experience, but we can handle just about anything at this point.

A few weeks from now, once I prove to my wife that I can take a walk around the block or run a couple of errands without ending up in the ER, I'll get my life back. I'll go back to work, I'll do chores, I'll be me again. 

When I first got diagnosed, I immediately went on the Internet. What I found indicated that I was in serious trouble. Frankly, I did not expect to be alive today. But here I am. 

We haven't beaten cancer; it will take five years before we can say that. But let's just say I have a lead at the moment and leave it at that.

As this is the final blog, please allow me to list a few people for whom I am eternally grateful (please forgive the absence of specific last names...I'm trying to keep things as anonymous as possible):

• My amazing kids, Sam and Sara, who made it impossible not to want to fight my ass off.
• My uncles, aunts, cousins, and friends, all of whom have been so supportive and encouraging.
• My work, particularly Jack, Annette, Sal and Sue, who have, incredibly, saved my job for me after all this time and at the cost of having to burden themselves with my work in my absence. I cannot overstate how comforting it has been to not have to worry about a job when I'm through with this...so incredibly generous.
• Cindy's work, particularly Claire, who have been so supportive of her during the months in which Cindy stayed home to take care of me.
• Everyone at the Cancer Center, particularly Dr. F., Dr. C., and Sam, for your relentless positivity, amazing care, and for getting me back to my family in better shape than you found me.
• To the Food Network, particularly "Chopped, "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives," and "Iron Chef America." I hate everything about you, but I can't look away. Thanks for killing those endless hours I spent alone in the house.
• My dad and my brother. Absolutely the worst moment of this process was right at the beginning, when I had to call my dad and tell him about my diagnosis, particularly on the heels of my mom's passing from pancreatic cancer just a couple of years earlier. He had just started his new life, and here I was dragging him back into this familiar, miserable territory. It felt incredibly cruel to do that to him...I still shiver when I think about that call. His and my brother's help, hopes, and incredible generosity and positivity have absolutely helped to drag me over the finish line of this thing. The game's not over, but we're just a few outs away from tying cancer 1-1.
• To my wife, Cindy. What can I possibly say? I still lapse into losing perspective about what we've been through this year and, despite my promises not to, worrying about meaningless stuff. I still say a boatload of stupid crap. I still burn stuff on the grill. All of that probably won't go away, at least not completely. So I apologize in advance and beg your forgiveness. If not for you, I'd be dead today, it's that simple. I love you.

And thank you all for your thoughts, prayers, and kind words. I've been truly overwhelmed by your kindness and generosity of spirit.

This was an awful year. But, all things considered, I find that I'm partly happy to have gone through it. I know so much more today about the true nature of people, about the power of positivity, and about perspective, than I knew on July 20, 2012. Whether I have five months left or fifty years, my life will have been a success if I remember and apply those lessons to whatever of my life that I have left.

Until we meet again...

Love,

Josh

Catching up

Well hello there. It's been a while. 

So, let's catch up, shall we? It seems that I've survived surgery. Either that, or the afterlife is sort of anticlimactic. 

The hospital was just a blast: No food for nine days, six different tubes sticking out of my body, a dangerously understaffed nursing corps furious that they had to work extra shifts due to the blizzard, endless waves of bizzarre dreams and visions whenever I tried to sleep...it was easily the worst nine days of my life. During my second night there, I woke up in a panic. I had no idea where I was or why, so I pushed the call button for the nurse. The look on her face was not exactly compassionate. It was more like, "I was on my coffee break, asshole. I wasn't even supposed to be working this shift." This pretty much sums up my Brigham and Women's experience. 

I've been home for around four weeks now, and every day, with the help of Cindy, my dad, and the visiting nurses, I feel better. We met with the surgeon last week for the first time since the big event. He is thrilled with how things have gone and told us that the pathology reports on the stuff they pulled out of me indicate that the operation, along with the chemo and radiation, was a massive success. They found no living cancer cells.

The surgeon pulled out my staples, meaning the last remnant of this whole ordeal (other than a truly badass scar) is my J-tube, through which I currently get about half of my nutrition. But I'm close to ditching that as well. All I have to do is prove to the surgeon that I can drink five Ensures a day. With my new stomach, this is akin to proving you can squeeze ten pounds of crap into a five pound bag, but I'm trying my best.

Revisiting the Cancer Center has been surreal. Everyone we know sees us and looks at me as if they're seeing a ghost. "Wow, you look...good," they say. By the shocked look on their faces, you can tell that they hadn't expected to see me again, which is a little eerie. 

Up next, after a few more weeks of recovery from surgery, are more rounds of chemotherapy. This is just to clean up any possibility that there are any cancer cells that survived. Then I get my life back. In all, this ordeal will have taken about a full year of my life away. But at least I didn't have to shovel during the blizzard.

As always, thank you all for your kind thoughts, words and prayers. 

Headlong into surgery

I've basically had two doctors during this process: an oncologist and a surgeon. They could not possibly be more different, personality-wise.

For instance, here are their reactions to my recent CAT scan:

ONCOLOGIST - "Absolutely spectacular. It's as if you never had cancer. It's completely eradicated. I mean, it's still there, under the surface, but we really beat the hell out of it with the radiation. Spectacular results. Spectacular!"

SURGEON - "Yeah, it's fine, I guess."

I've never been in a room with both of them at the same time, but I would imagine that it would be hilarious.

So, anyway, good news on the scans. So now we're ready for surgery, which I understand will look something like the "Do you confess?" scene near the end of Braveheart. The surgery will take place on February 4, AKA the day after the Patriots win the Superbowl. Between now and then, I have approximately 45 appointments with various doctors, and a nasty cavity session with a dentist, but we're almost at the finish line.

Well, not quite the finish line, as it seems the oncologist wants to do more chemo after I recover from the surgery. Which is just super.

Thanks, as always, for the kind thoughts and prayers. As much as it's going to suck, getting to surgery is an absolute gift from the heavens--it's the opportunity to beat this that my mom never got. I can't help but think that all of the positive thoughts from everyone out there have helped to make this happen. I am forever in your debt.