An "Off Week" Isn't What I Thought It Would Be, Until I Remembered My Sinatra

“To do is to be” – Nietzsche

“To be is to do” – Kant

“Do be do be do” - Sinatra

This week is my “off week” from chemo treatments, but it has not been that sweet little bit of respite I had hoped for. Eight days ago I exited the Four Winds Cancer Clinic and expected a little tiredness for a couple, maybe three days, followed by a gradual upswing in my energy level and general overall “feeling.” In fact, I have not had either of those positive outcomes until yesterday. In between I have learned that the new chemo drug negatively impacts both white blood cells and platelets, the result of which is like having a mild flu, complete with bodily aches and a deep tiredness, accompanied by a small daily fever. Mine comes at 4 p.m., regular as clockwork, or did until yesterday when thankfully there was no fever at all. Nor is there one today. Hurrah!

I also learned that for whatever reason the third round caused some blood corpuscles in my lower left leg to burst, giving me what appears to be an angry dark red rash from my ankle to mid-calf.  The right leg has a few small bursts of color, but nothing like the left leg. The good news is twofold: (1) at least it doesn’t itch, and (2) it isn’t a sign of something much worse, which is a blood clot. To make sure, Dr. Robin and the team at Four Winds ordered up an ultrasound from my pelvis to my feet, a task performed by an excellent and informative specialist named Norm and a trainee named Amy over at Chandler Regional Hospital. Norm also shared with me the fact that my blood vessels appear to be in great shape overall, which is a good sign for not developing blood clots in the future.

Insert Big Sigh of Relief here. 

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I know it sounds like I was consumed by health concerns since last I wrote, but the truth is I have not been. Instead, I have been consumed by work and family life, as I want to be, and in between visits to the Clinic for blood work, tests, and talk with Monica, Gerri, Lauren, and Jan about how best to deal with my latest “developments,” I also managed to teach my three-hour grad seminar, grade a set of midterm exams from my undergrads, attend meetings, meet with students, and otherwise get on with life. I even found the three hours needed to properly do a Tuscan pork roast for the family (marinade for an hour, then high heat for 20 minutes, then low heat for 2 ½ hours), watch some war movies and a surprisingly good John Travolta espionage film called “From Paris With Love,” hang out with Nic, Mac, Alyssa, and San, and – just this morning – to share in Alyssa’ good news about getting into both San Diego State and the University of Arizona grad programs in Communication as well as Monica’s wonderful news about Lainie’s not needing any further treatments in Denver! Hurrah!

I guess that all adds up to this: As unpleasant as the third round of chemo was in the aftermath, we are – all of us – getting used to dealing with whatever comes up. With the love and support of my family and our friends and caregivers, we are moving forward despite my having this weird disease. I say “weird” because not only is the experience of living with cancer different for every person we’ve known despite some similarities in side effects, but how the body deals with it can just plain make you feel strange. How’s that for a proper scientific description? Yet I can think of no better way to describe the everydayness of it, this “strange” feeling when cancer is somewhere inside of you.

In my case, it is strange to walk without really feeling most of my feet and part of my lower legs. It is strange to try to type with limited feeling in my fingers. It is strange to get a mild fever at precisely the same time every day, and – ironically – it is even stranger when it doesn’t arrive on time. It is strange to feel like you have the flu day in and day out, but know that (a) you don’t really have the flu, and (b) there really are only two choices: go back to bed and waste the day(s) – some of that precious time you have – or  just get up and go on about your business. It’s not like cancer is contagious. I won’t be infecting anyone. That is strange too. For as bad as I may feel on the inside, that feeling really doesn’t show on the outside yet very much at all. My hair is greying a bit, but maybe that would have happened anyway. And of course there is this weird non-rash that looks nastier than it is.

If I “look good” when I’m in the low part of the week long recovery cycle, believe me, looks can be deceptive. Mostly, if the past week is any guide, I feel like shit.

Pardon me. 

*** 

But then again, maybe this first round of the new regime is just my body adjusting to the new chemo, that five-letter word that is really masks a four-letter profanity. Maybe. Gerri tells me that it’s entirely possible and I want to believe her. 

Maybe how I felt last week is just kind of like what happens when you emerge from a long period of relative inactivity and play a really hard game of tennis (or better given that it is “March Madness” and I am a big Carolina fan), basketball. The next day you feel it. Your muscles ache. You can’t move properly. You moan because you hurt. Yet it is always the second day that is worse, particularly if you don’t exercise at least a little bit and stretch those aching muscles on the first day. The worst thing you can do to your body how you feel is to stay in bed or wrap up in a couch blanket and stare at the tube.

So yes, I could just go back to bed. I know no one would fault me. But I don’t think it’s best. There will be plenty of time for that somewhere down the road, when I take “The Big Leave” (ever read Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep?), wherein my tired old body will finally, completely, come to rest. In the meantime, there’s too much to do.

Or to be. 

Or “do be do be do …”

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