Missing in Action

22. March 2010 by admin.

I have to apologize for not being around so much lately.  Things have been…well, I’ll let you decide.

My partner and I decided in May to go looking for a house.  We were living in his quaint little two bedroom bungalow for a couple of years now and while things were fine, a majority of my stuff remained in storage as a result of the space issues.  A little bit of research and a couple of visits and he and I signed a contract to have a house built in one of the southern suburbs of Denver.  The primary draw (aside from the fact that we went from 800 square feet to 1935 square feet) was that his work is about 10 minutes away.  For me, the commute was longer but almost entirely via train so a longer commute with less hassles.

Anyway, so we checked out the community and came to a remarkable conclusion: we could get everything we wanted and didn’t have to sell his house first!  That made things easier because selling his place would have been difficult.  Still is.  But we have someone who will rent from us and help fix the place up in lieu of some rent.  Nice!

The requirements were pretty simple: no rear neighbors (that was mine), a laundry on the second floor (his request) and an open floor plan with three bedrooms.  We ended up with a three bedroom plan on an end lot with just one neighbor that had a separate office, the upstairs laundry and a five piece master bath and nice sized walk-in closet.  Nice!  But it got better.  The day after we signed the contract, they dropped the prices on most of the options for the place.  They also gave us a $10K discount on the price as well as 3% toward the closing costs and then there was that wonderful $8,000 tax credit from the government.  Oy!

So, with the drop in option prices, we got the whole house vacuum as well as speakers throughout the space (living room, kitchen, master bedroom and master bath), pre-wire for both security and an A/C unit (we decided to get our own), full 9’ ceilings in the basement, garage door opener and insulated garage, and we had the place painted inside.  This was on top of the high end gas appliances in the kitchen.  Tile in the kitchen/dining/and entry spaces, tile in the upstairs bathrooms and laundry, and a nice carpet throughout the rest of the floors makes the space really nice. 

Because we got the end lot, we were required to get a side entrance which made the place work even better than originally designed and we got extra windows in the garage as well as more landscaping than the average homeowner.  Very cool!  So we had the place built starting in July and moved in at the end of October.

But that’s not all, folks.  You see, while the house was being built and we were all excited about moving and sharing our lives together in the new space, things were conspiring behind the scenes to make things more complex.  At the end of July I had a regular doctor’s appointment where my cholesterol and blood sugar and all the other numbers from the tests were good or normal and things seemed to be pretty typical.  But I had a swollen tonsil and asked my doctor to take a look at it.

I was diagnosed with Stage IIIB squamous cell cancer of the throat and neck.  It had started in my tonsil but apparently grown out to my left lymph node.  Had we not caught it when we did, it would have spread pretty quickly through the lymph system and that would not have been good.

So, I began treatment for the cancer in September with a rather aggressive chemotherapy plan that hit me hard for a week, gave me a couple weeks off and then hit me again.  This was repeated a third time before I started my daily radiation treatments.  The first week of chemo was very difficult but somehow my body worked it out and the second and third weeks were not as bad for side effects.  I was done in time to have some Thanksgiving turkey.

The radiation was the most difficult.  First there was this mask.  It locks your head into place so you don’t move around while the radiation is being given to you.  I discovered a profound problem with claustrophobia which I was able to fight off without the need for daily doses of valium by repeating a mantra which kept me from going too crazy: “I can rip this mask off any time I want.”  It was true too although I never had to test that theory, thankfully!  So, for 35 treatments (Monday through Friday excluding holidays) I went into the cancer center and got zapped for 15-20 minutes at a time.

No, I did not lose my hair entirely, it did go thin and we shaved it down a bit but I only “lost” it in a band along my neck where the radiation came across.  I also will never be able to grow a beard (not that my Scandinavian heritage helped me much there anyway) and oral surgery will have to be a carefully chosen option since that was the primary focus area.  Sigh.  But, for the most part, things went well.

It was funny.  My Mom came out in mid-December to “help out” and be a mother but where she thought to find an invalid with a feeding tube and no strength, I was actually able to drive up until the last treatment in January and still never hit the “bad” side effects until after the treatments were over.  Sure, I lost my sense of taste (which has only recently started coming back) and the fatigue did keep me from working for a couple of months, but overall, I was a remarkable overachiever.  My doctors are amazed.  I am pleased I didn’t have to go through the things they were saying I would.  So, although she stayed for several weeks, my Mom did leave shortly after the new year.  She was a little disappointed that I didn’t “need” her like she thought.

My Dad and brother then came for a visit and, by lucky happenstance, as a result of a low red blood cell count, I had to miss one day of treatment which placed my last day on Martin Luther King day, their second day visiting.  So they got to meet everyone I was dealing with and got to see how the radiation went before we spent the rest of the week mostly relaxing and not doing much.  It was good to see them.

So, the recovery continues.  I have been back to work for about a month now and while many of the side effects remain, they are nowhere near as bad as people expected.  I am tasting food again, although mainly sour stuff.  I love pickles so that’s a good thing!  My weight has not quite rebounded yet.  I lost 50 pounds in total and have gained back about 10-15 of it.  I want to get another 20 pounds or so, mainly to feel more…er…comfortable, with myself.  I do not want to go out and buy all new clothes, that’s for sure.

The fatigue is not as bad as it has been although I do not do full 8 hour days yet.  I get in around 8:30ish and leave about 3:30 right now.  If I feel tired, I lay down on my sofa in my office but overall, I am feeling like this exercise was worth it.  You see, the results came back and I am officially cancer-free.  <grin>  YES!  In a remarkable twist of irony, the coach of the Denver Nuggets basketball team announced he had the same cancer I did (on the other side of the throat from me) on the day I found out I was clean.  Sigh!  So he gets all the attention.  But I am happy, regardless.

So, there you have it.  It’s been a busy few months so I apologize for not contributing more here.  But I am in a feisty mood and things seem to be warranting a lot more commentary of late.  So, look for more entries coming soon.  And thanks for being patient!

Rob

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