So it’s time for me to go on another Doctor Quest. That is, a quest for doctors, not a father of an intrepid young explorer, his Indian friend and small dog. I’m getting ready to begin my quest for both a primary care doc (haven’t had one really since my cancer diagnosis) and a shrink. The ADD’s been getting pretty bad as of late, and I need someone who can tell me whether it’s that acting up or chemo brain. Or both. The fun never stops.

Since the shrink may very well prescribe meds for me, I gave my favorite Kathryn a call to see if she could make a list of all the different chemo regimens I’ve had. She was able to, and holy moly. Turns out, I’ve had sixteen unique chemo drugs in the past year. Even wound up having a few of them twice. How’s this for a list of ingredients:

• ABVD: doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, dacarbazine
• ICE: Ifosfamide, carboplatin, etoposide
• No-name #1: Cisplatin, gemcitabine
• No-name #2: Ifosfamide, gemcitabine, navelbine
• British MOPP: Chlorambucil, vinblastine, Procarbazine, prednisone
• BEAM: BCNU, etoposide, cytarabine, melphalan

Wow. That’s one thing about SuperCoop – he’s thorough. I was doing a bit of research on some of these and whenever there’s a family of chemo drugs with subsets, I’ve pretty much had one from each of the subsets. It’s all quite impressive when you lay it out on a big piece of paper. I would hate to be the doctor figuring out my drug interactions for the next couple of years.

Well, I did it – today was my first day back at work. That would be Day +122 for those of you keeping track of such things. I myself had to sit down with a pen and paper and do the figuring, so that number might not be right anyway.

Work went well. I’ve forgotten a lot of programming stuff, but I’m well underway in re-learning it all. I went up and down the stairs four times and was quite bushed when I got home tonight.

In other news (since I did no posting in the month of October – for shame!), we’ve rented out the Hartford house! They’re a nice young couple and love the house. So much so, that they’ve mentioned a couple of times that they really want to buy it when the lease is up in April. Cross your fingers that we have a mild winter so they won’t be freaked out by the gas bills. This came just in time for us, since we can now take the house back off the market and someone will be there to shovel the walks and keep the pipes from freezing. Plus, they’re covering most of our mortgage payment, which always helps.

Of course, the very day that the lease was signed and we got the first/last/deposit check, Barb’s check engine light came on. Then my airbag light went on. Barb’s car is gonna cost us $2600 to fix, and I’m pretty sure mine’s a short in the dashboard, as it does other weird things. For the truck, we’re doing research on trading it in and getting something that’ll be safer for me to drive in the winter. That’ll give me something else to write about out here, at least, right?

We had a moderate number of trick-or-treaters last night, with the best being our little next door neighbor. Her brother was dressed as Anakin and she was something furry (both near ten-ish). She asked Barb if Barb could guess her costume and after a little pause, perusal and a couple of spins, Barb asked “Are you a squirrel?” She was overjoyed, since in fact, she was a squirrel. Barb mentioned that squirrels were my favorite and how I take care of my little buddies. Turns out, they’re constantly feeding the little guys as well. No wonder we have such fat squirrels in our neighborhood!

One last sad Halloween note – I came very close last night to reporting some parents for child abuse. We had to return some pants I bought earlier in the day and around 7:30 the trick-or-treaters had slowed down to a trickle, so we went back to the store. When we get to the store, it was us, the employees and a family consisting of two parents and two kids, both within trick-or-treat age. Not only were the kids not dressed up for Halloween and out trick or treating, but they were in a clothing store SHOPPING FOR SHOES! Sure, if you have some wacked out religious beliefs, you can keep your kids from celebrating pagan holidays like Halloween, Easter and Christmas, but to instead take them shoe shopping? That’s just cruel and unusual.

Oh, and a quick website note – I’ve added some more warriors over to the Hodgkin’s Army list. If you’ve sent me your URL at some point, I probably have you added now. I’m going to make a resolution to start going through my backlogs of email and start replying to all of the people I didn’t get to reply to through the stem cell days and such. Better late than never, right? Right?

So I just returned from a trip to Stop & Shop and discovered that Father Time drives a Benzo. In the S&S parking lot, I followed a silver CL500 with the license plate “Time” driving substantially under 5 mph. After wondering if Jerome was driving it with the big mirror in the passenger seat (come on people, stay with me here) and if Morris Day was in a Beamer behind me somewhere, I got a gander at the driver. Well, not the driver so much as a little bit of his gray hair, since naturally, that’s all I could see over his steering wheel. Who new eternal beings went for German luxury?

In cancer news, I saw SuperCoop today and everything looks okay. I’m going to be getting a PET scan in November sometime and it occurs to me as I type this that I have no scheduled appointment either for the scan or a followup appointment with SuperCoop. Oh well, I guess someone will call me eventually. I also set up an appointment to see a headshrinker (the licensed kind, not the aboriginal kind) and will perhaps discuss my Father Time sighting with her on Monday.

Oh, also as I was driving to the Stop & Shop (current craving: OreIda crispers. current need: bigger freezer) and I get to the end of my block, a lady is driving towards me and preparing to turn to her right as I turn to mine. As she turns and I see the side of her car, I think to myself, “What a nice lady, showing her support for someone in her life that has cancer.”

I tootle on down the street a ways and pull up behind a car at a stop sign and think, “Here’s someone else giving us… ‘Support Our Troops’? Ohhhhh yeaaaaahhhh… the yellow ribbons aren’t for us. Crap.”

I’m not sure if this means that cancer is still very much on my mind or if I’m just really, really self-centered.

The oven might be preheated now, so I’ll leave you with those nuggets. I have more to write on what I’ve learned (eventually) and I’m also going to be getting around to answering all of your emails really soon, so don’t despair!

So today was The End – my last radiation treatment. Tomorrow morning I will wake up whenever my eyes happen to open and have absolutely nothing on my plate. Sure there are a few chores to be done, some honeydos to cross off the list and some TV to watch, but there’s not a one of those that has anything to do with cancer. I’m sitting here at the computer right at this moment, and all is right with the world. No aches, no pains, no itches, no coughs, no labored breathing. For this moment in time, I get to feel like a completely normal human being. It’s easy to forget that feeling after a few years.

As I sit here, scratching my shoulder since I was dumb enough to mention not itching, I realize it may be time to start looking back. Time for a cancer retrospective. Wait – no. That brings to mind ends of careers and TV shows. Less a retrospective and more an answer to a question. It’s a question I often find myself asking at the end of just about anything major I do (or stop doing) : What did I learn from all of this?

After all, I had cancer fer chrissakes. If you can’t learn a thing or two from this sort of experience, then you really need to look into your study habits. So I’ve been thinking about this whole thing over the past couple of days, running words and ideas through my head, hoping to run across something Poignant and Touching that would Stay With All of Us Forever and Ever. After a bit of that kind of thinking, I finally got over myself and just started thinking about the real answer to the question, audience be dam… err.. forgotten. For the moment. Yeah.

As I ran through different ideas and concepts and, well, things, I realized that I have a few different things I can take away from this whole experience.

1. I’m much stronger than I once imagined. Not to brag or anything, but before this, I had always suspected that I had something like strength inside me. Something that set me just a little bit apart from a lot of the people around me. Whether it was getting back on the motorcycle after a big wreck, getting back on my skates after stopping a puck with my head, or just not whining about my latest cold, I had picked up over the years that my brain and my body handled things differently than other people. Cancer has just cemented those feelings in my mind and brought out my inner badass. I’m constantly running into people who are amazed at the way I’ve held up through all of these trials. The way I show up to my appointments with a smile and shrug off the pain, exhaustion and general misery that comes with this whole cancer thing. Do you want to know my secret? All you need is the strength to pick your times of strength. Am I strong 24/7? Hell no. Am I strong every second I’m in public? Every chance I get. Everyone expects you to be weak. To be tired. To be defeated. Why should you do what other people expect?
2. Breaks that are repaired make those spots stronger. I know what that means in my head, though it doesn’t make a lot of sense when I type it. Here’s what I’m saying: If you take a stick, break it, then glue it back together, that spot becomes one of the strongest in the length of the stick. Assuming you’ve done the repair correctly, of course. What do sticks have to do with all of this? That stick is my spirit. I wasn’t strong 24/7 – not even close. I had a couple of major breakdowns in the course of all this, along with several smaller ones. But each time I was broken, I made the repairs and now I’m stronger for having broken. You can show your strong side to the world, but know that at some point, you’re probably going to break. When you do, you just need to glue yourself back together and you’ll be stronger for it.
3. The world is full of amazing people. This is something you just can’t learn until you have some Major Life Changing Event. I’m often one of the first people to go around hating humanity in general, typically when I’ve been driving for a little while. This whole experience has reminded me of just how amazing people can really be when they’re needed. All of my family and friends have been exceptional, from the closest of the close to those we only see once a year or less. Everyone has been absolutely incredible. The doctors and nurses and affiliated medical workers have been amazing. Sure, it’s their job to take care of me, but I didn’t run into a single one who had been hardened by the whole Cancer Experience. The vets were just as loving, caring and optomistic as the rookies. The folks I’ve met over on the Hodgkin’s Forum have been spectacular and an amazing source of support for both Barb and I. They’ve managed to get us over some big bumps in all of this and hopefully we’re doing the same for them. Last but not least is you – the reader of this blog. Assuming you’re not already in one of the previously mentioned groups, you’re probably one of the folks who stumbled into me from a link somewhere or a mention from a friend. I’ve received a lot of emails from you folks and they’ve all touched my heart in one way or another. I also promise that one of these days I’m going to get around to responding to them all :) I got a little behind with the hospital stays and all.
4. Rest is very important.While I have learned a few more things, this is one of the more important ones. And having learned this one, I’m going to go to bed and continue this tomorrow.

First, the cancer update. I saw the retina folks yesterday and, after a 53 minute wait, found that my eyes are still doing slightly better. Two hours of sitting and a fifteen minute exam to find this out. I have an appointment in three months to do the same thing.

I also saw the dietician for the radiation therapy folks to discuss the types of stuff I should be eating right now, since my esophagus is acting a little wonky. Basically it boils down to avoiding spices, citruses, acidics and sharps. So no Thai, no oranges, no tomato sauce and no chips. She also was trying to paint a semi-bleak feature for me, mentioning that the esophageal effects could linger for a couple of weeks after treatment. Then she got around to asking where I was, treatment-wise. After hearing I only had three treatments left (two as of today), she changed her tune. Naturally, she didn’t realize she was dealing with a badass.

I’ve recently gotten it in my head that it’s time to start riding a bicycle. I’m thinking about getting a single speed mountain bike, ’cause I’ve never really been enamoured of the whole bicycle-shifting thing. A single speed bike is supposed to be a tougher workout that requires less concentration, which is right up my alley right now. The only problem I have (aside from finding a place that sells the one I want) is the image thing. The cancer survivor is taking up bicycle riding. You know what that means – Lance Frickin’ Armstrong. Thanks for spoiling it for the rest of us, Lance. Now everyone thinks we’re you or trying to be you. Maybe I’ll wait until my hair grows out some more, tell the shop owner I’m recovering from a shark attack.