30 March - First Chemo

Chemo treatment is mainly boring, specially if you forget your reading material at home...

I don't feel a thing, except for some mild nausea, bit of headache, and mild fever.
I've been warned that the side effects should start at night or the next day or two, but so far the only hair that fell off my head was a white one and this supposed to be a good thing, right?

I'm drinking lot's of home made Ginger tea, eating home made chicken soup (yum yum) and candy bars.
Wet Matzo with salted butter and "Hashachar" chocolate spread is a winning treat from the holyland (but be careful! Wet matzo is not passover kosher! (and yet — it is lovely)

Nervous Breakdown (Almost)

It's Saturday.
Nothing happens today.
Only waiting.

I'm nervous and upset and getting crazy with anticipation.
Erik is taking good care of me and is being super patient with my craziness.
I have some relaxing medication (aka — sleeping pills) but trying to avoid filling my body with stuff before the 'real thing' so it doesn't push back on Wednesday...

Tomorrow my friends E. and E. are picking me up to have some nice day out in town — to cheer me up and have some fun.
At least it's something out of the house.
Maybe we can find a nice hat for me?!

Step Three - Testing your patience

Or - the patience you need to have as a patient, to go through all the following tests and discussions before anyone will take the first move to kick the cancer's rear:

9 March

- I have cancer

(3 days gap — time to get used to the idea and start boiling in it)

12 March

- CT scan. With this scan the doctor will determine the stage of the cancer.

The test is something else by itself: an hour before the test you get a bottle of 1 liter of a sperm-like fluid, with the charming flavor of slightly rotten oranges. You need to drink it all throughout the hour and not at once (have no mistake! — It's designed like this to get you to develop the acquired taste, not to get the fluid spread evenly in your body). During the test itself, you lie on a bed-like thing, you get something injected to your body that makes you feel like you've just wet your pants, and while you're busy worrying that your shameful pants-wetting accident is visible (and contemplating how you're going to say something to the "people in charge" because nobody told you to bring change of clothes!) — the bed slides in and out of a ringy machine with disco lights going round you. yippee! And then it's over. You get dressed and are happy to discover that the pants are not wet. It was just your senses playing a trick on you (WTF?!). Time for a cigarette (you hadn't had one since 06:00 and it's now past 11:00)

(4 days gap — boiling continues. What will be the results? How many jelly-beans are there in my body? Where else are they? How long do I already have this shit?...)

16 March

- First appointment with the Oncologist and the oncology department's staff

I got to hear the stage of my cancer - Stage 2b. this means stage 2 with "side effects" such as night sweating, itching and other strange feelings in the body. This is good news because although the cancer is located in 3 locations within the lymphatic system, all 3 are on the same side of the diaphragm and no other organs are involved. It is also positive news, because it means that I can get into a European Research that is there to check if it's possible to exclude radiations from the treatment of Hodgkin. And if there is the possibility to avoid radiations — one should choose this possibility. Radiations are told to be very bad for you on the long term.

I was introduced in general terms to the chemotherapy used for treating Hodgkin.

Now it's time for additional tests, to have in the file and for the monitoring of the impacts the chemo will have on the overall functionality of my body.

Everything in the Oncology department is very efficient. Things are happening super-quick and with the friendliest of smiles.

17 March

- Bone Marrow test

The first and most "charming" test.

It was designed in HELL specially to cheer people up.

It has an empowering effect on you:

If you've survived the bone marrow test, you can survive anything. Even cancer.

The test is done to check if the cancer had spread into the bone marrow.

If it had - the stage of the cancer becomes immediately stage 4.

18 March

- Acupuncture to stop smoking

It's strictly forbidden to smoke while benign treated with the specific chemo I'm about to get.

I don't like this cancer anymore! You can't even smoke quietly!

23 March

- Appointment with the Oncologist

I brought in the signed document of the research. I'm in!

The doctor asks if I had a date in mind to start the treatments.

30 March seems like a good date for me. It is also a good date for them.

30 March it is!

- Chest X-ray

- Dental Check

Before you start chemotherapy, it is important that your mouth is free of infections

(you'll get your fair share of those from the chemo in due time)

It was the first time ever that I went to check my teeth and they were found in good condition.

I must do something right.

24 March

- Heart Muscle Function test

Interesting stuff!

A bit of radioactive stuff goes into your blood and than you lie for 30 minutes

in a sci-fi machine that takes pictures and video of the way your heart is working

and how much blood it pumps in and out...

I almost fell asleep.

- Meeting with the Oncology Nurse

Time to ask all the questions and get them answered.

This is a very important chemo-orientation meeting.

Now everything is finally clear.

25 March

- 2nd Acupuncture treatment

- Blood Test before chemo

- Lung Function Test

It's great to see how after 22 years of intensive smoking — my lungs are functioning as they should.

And that's it!

Between 25-30 march I'm excused from visiting the hospital.

Next visit will be for the first chemo treatment.

Nice weekend to us all :-)

Step two - Spread the word

...And then you need to inform your loved ones.

How to do it — is all up to you.

Having made the choice to talk about it freely - I first called my mom. Made sure she was sitting in a comfortable chair and told her that it is Hodgkin after all (she'd heard the word several times from me before during the self-diagnostic stage and had made her own research on Hodgkin: the man and the disease he so carefully chose to discover).

She said something like "shit" — in mother's language that involves tears and badly-disguised panic.

Afterwards I called my father, with whom I am just building a new bond after long years of not sharing our life experiences with each-other. This was a bit tougher. My father obviously cares for me dearly, but he is not a person who share his feelings, and he doesn't really know me, my cynicism, my sarcasm and overall sense of humor. He also doesn't know my sensitivities and what can or cannot be told to my ears. And to be perfectly honest - I know the exact same nothing about him.

Strangely enough — the fact that his wife picked up the phone and got the news from me first, made it easier for me to repeat the story for him afterwards. I've already released the news to "his side"... he had some sense of the news before hearing them.

And then... I had to scream it out for everybody else.

So - I posted the one liner "it begins with a C and walks sideways" on my FB status.

The confused reactions started to flow, and I started answering the puzzled questions with details.

I later heard that a friend, 9 months pregnant, found it too brutal...

Sorry... couldn't help it.

Dealing with the news of a sick friend or family member is not simple:

most of us (me included) don't know what to say to this person, whom we love and care for. we are worried we might say the wrong things. so we avoid. and we keep avoiding dealing with the news on person-to-person level and the outcome is many times that we lose the whole connection with this person - just by being shy, and then being ashamed with our shyness and so it continues to roll until we no longer can initiate communication with the sick person.

My sister in law is getting confused with her own will to help.

My brother in law is completely lost for words, so he says nothing.

A loved cousin has told my mom that she doesn't know how to react.

Some dear friends have completely vanished

Some other are caring and doing more than I would have ever dreamt.

Some send cards.

There's a little girl who sends me drawings she makes for me in pre-school (by her own initiative!)

Some people pray for me in their houses of worship

Some share with me their own distresses so I won't feel lonely

Some avoid sharing their extreme joys so i won't feel lonely

...

When I was on the healthy side of things - I would be exactly like each and every one of them (except for the paying types... it has to end someplace).

If in the past I would feel that any of these reactions is wrong and would be deeply ashamed by reacting it myself - I now suddenly see it from the eyes of the sick friend.

I now understand that except of telling me to drop dead — all reactions are welcome.

I am more than able to contain them and deal with them all.

There is absolutely no wrong reaction.

Let's talk about it!

Step one — get used to it

After you've been told of your fresh status as someone with cancer — you're sent home to get used to the idea.

It's quite surreal, because it's normally something that happens to other people and it's strange to look at cancer as something of your own.

Thinking of it may bring up hope of finally winning the lottery because that's another thing that usually happens to others, but you soon realize that these are wrong assumptions and the only thing that happened to you is your cancer. Bummer. It would have been much easier to look at €25.000.000 as your own, wouldn't it?

It's not simple to look at cancer as something that happens in your own body.

There's a strong sense of betrayal. Your body is cheating on you.

I'm a cynical person. I make dark jokes about it. Some of my friends and relatives find it hard to take it. But it is my own way of coping. If I got so far as having cancer at 39, it must be a joke. And the joke can either be on me or on the cancer. And it is my own personal preference that the joke won't be on me.

I chose the path of talking about it, out loud and clear. No whispering of the C word.

No euphemism. It is cancer, not an exotic Texan Virus.

Another thing is to find someone or something to blame.

I tried and tried and couldn't find anything.

Although i'm a heavy smoker, although I'm a devoted coffee drinker, I've had my share of alcohol consumption to last for a lifetime of drunkenness and I'm a not exercising if it's up to me — hodgkin's Lymphoma has no causes, at least not causes that have anything to do with me.

The majority of the patients are men, HIV positive with history of immune system issues.

I'm not part of any majority related to this particular cancer.

The odds would be for me to have breast cancer - just by being a woman, or lung cancer for being a smoker, or skin cancer for spending most of my life under the Israeli sun (including the full length of the 80's — when we used baby oil to properly fry ourselves).

So why me? Why now?

What is a "Texan Virus"?

A Texan Virus is a general name for something your doctor cannot identify.

When you feel ill, when you have pains, when you're constantly tired and your skin itches, when you're sweating yourself awake at night, when your lymphatic glands are swelling and staying swollen and when you start sounding to the doctor as a deranged hypochondriac — and when the only point of reference for the beginning of the majority of symptoms is your 2 weeks business trip to Texas - this is when the option of "an exotic Texan virus" comes to your doctor's mind.

And then you are being referred to an internist — to have them run the additional tests (like a full blood work, chest x-ray etc.) and to stop taking up precious time from those regular people with flu.

The internist follows your family doctor's indication and sends you to do all sorts of tests to look for this rare exotic virus us Europeans can only get when we travel as far as Texas - or perhaps to rule it out and send you home.

And after 10 days of self diagnosis with the help of your dear friend google, when you are absolutely certain that what you have IS cancer, and you even have a specific cancer that fits the full detailed set of symptoms, and you are getting all mad with fear for your life and thoughts of chemotherapy, and god forbid — death — just then all the test results come back negative.

You get the news that should make you thrilled - but you are upset - because you know something is VERY wrong with you.

And then you have the following conversation with the internist:

INT: That's good news, isn't it?

YOU: Well, yes, but...

INT: What did you think?

YOU: Well, in the past weeks I've been googgling my symptoms, and the results were all sorts of Lymphomas... or lupus...

INT: So to rest your mind - I can order some more specific Lupus tests and get a biopsy of one of the glands, if that's what you want.

YOU: let's go for it.

So after another 3 weeks you have a gland removed. The gland is attached to your neck and likes its place so it's actually painful through the anesthesia - but eventually the surgeon wins and manages to cut it off and send it to the lab.

Another 2 weeks of waiting for the results - you go abroad to celebrate your brother's wedding, you still feel like shit, but you are happy and based on the previous blood tests - you are positive the next ones will come clean as well.

And you go to get the results.

And the internist calls your husband to join you in the office.

And the internist tells you that the gland, which looked like a harmless pale pink Jelly Bean when it came out of your neck and was placed in preserving liquids — is actually a Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Yes, your friend google was right.

There is no Texan Virus.

If there were — it would have had a name. Like Hodgkin lymphoma has a name.

YOU have cancer.

And this is how suddenly your life turns around.

What do you do with cancer? — This is one of the questions I will try to answer as I go through the magical journey of beating it.