3rd Round

Having been a runner for most of my life I've been mentally comparing my chemo treatments to workouts or a races. The mile, or 4 laps around a track (which also happened to be my favorite race in high school) works nicely since I've got 12 treatments of chemo that I'm shooting for, every three is a lap. Figuratively speaking I'm just about finished with my first lap of a mile race, and feelin good!

I haven't had much to report by way of news since round 2, it turned out to be much better than round 1, and I only had a few days where I felt really bad. I have noticed the nueropathy side effect more in rounds 2 and 3. My hands and feet have been a little numb, clammy and at times a little weak...some people have lasting problems with this after they conclude chemo treatments and others don't.

For this 3rd round the doctor switched me to a new anti-nausea medicine and I'm happy to report it seems to be working the best out of the three I've tried with little of the blurred vision, headaches etc that the others seemed to cause. I spent my time at the clinic yesterday watching the Olympics and chatting with my one neighbor, Maryanne, a fellow Colon Cancer patient. I'm not sure how old she was, I'm guessing late 60's early 70's, but she was very up beat and positive. She was on her 10th of 12 chemo treatments, which is always inspiring for me to see someone finishing strong.

Another reason for the lull in blog entry since round 2 has been 'blogger's block'. I mentioned that in my next few posts I was going to attempt to articulate some of the things I've learned up to this point...its proving to be a much harder thing to do than I thought. I started a few posts but was never able to finish them or feel like I was expressing what I wanted to express.

So here is a brief, but very humbling lesson that I've learned. I've mentioned this before, but words just don't express how supported I've felt from friends and family. Every email, voicemail, comment on this blog and text message that I've received have meant more to me than the people leaving it will ever know. The same goes even more so for all the prayers, and the good I know they are doing.

We've had more offers to come help out with chores around the house, and yard, dinners and errands than we know what to do with. There is really no other way for me to describe it other than just a complete outpooring of love. I've had several friends say to me something like, "I'm so sorry that it takes something like this happening for me to really make the effort to stay in touch." I'm equally as guilty and wonder what kind of friend I've been through the years to people as they have gone through difficult experiences in their lives...and what kind of friend I've remained in my 'ordinary friendships' where there haven't been any major events to motivate us to stay in touch better. Why is it that I haven't made more time to keep in touch? Well I guess the answer is easy, I thouht I was too busy. Knowing this makes all the support we've received all the more humbling, followed by feelings of not being worthy to receive it.

So this is the lesson I'll say has been reiterated instead of learned: People are good, and they have good hearts. I say reiterated, because I've never had the belief or thought that mankind as a whole had 'bad hearts', but through this experience I've just been reminded of the goodness of people. They have gone out of their way to show love and support to myself and family. I'm inspired to try and be the best I can be because of their examples.

As always thank you for your prayers!