The Last Chapter?

“ Life’s like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending.”—JimHenson

My fourth and final round of chemo happened in mid-April of 2021. The nurses at the infusion center presented me with a cake, cheers and applause. It was over. With tears in my eyes, I told them I was very grateful for their care and support. And added, “Don’t take this personally, but I hope to never see any of you again.” Chemo Nun did not attend, but when I arrived I saw her heading into a room with a Chemo Bible packet in tow. A new novice being inducted. 

Was this the end of my cancer journey? I’ve always struggled with endings. However, with cancer, I desperately wanted an ending. Preferably a happy one.

My entire life I have thrived when I had something to look forward to. Something that interested me—gave me a reason to muddle through the mundane. When writing, I needed quiet to encourage me to put words on the page. When performing, I needed rehearsal to focus on perfecting my performance. Then, doing a show for eight weeks I looked forward to each performance because I would invariably discover a different approach that would elicit a better audience reaction. When the run ended, I felt a sense of disappointment and loss—even for the shows I vowed I would never do again. However, being cast in the next production started the cycle of anticipation again. I had hoped that once this horrific health episode had ended I would be back to performing. Now I’m doubting that will happen.

Finishing chemo was one of the best days of my life. No one warned me that the side effects were cumulative.  By the fourth round, I seriously questioned if death might be preferable. After all, I didn’t feel sick until I allowed them to inject me with poison. Those who have endured multiple sessions of chemo/radiation have my admiration and sympathy. It drains you physically and emotionally. The weeks after my last infusion were the roughest. 

Fatigue came to stay. She liked to remind me that getting out of the recliner to go to the bathroom was sufficient exercise for the day. When I tried to do more, Fatigue invited her sister, Weakness, to visit. She told me I shouldn’t venture too far from my chair or she would slam me to the floor. 

The twins, Nausea and Vomit, sat on my shoulder. As I scrolled through social media stopping to view a recipe or food video, Nausea would groan, “You think that looks good? Ewww!” Vomit would chuckle, “I give it a 9 on the barf meter. Think it will still look good floating in the toilet?” Weakness would laugh maniacally,  “That is if I let her make it that far. Ha! Fat chance!” 

Their grandpa, Sleep, was my only friend. He insisted I be in bed by 9 and stay there until 8 the following morning. By 10 am, he would start humming a lullaby. If I protested, he would say, “If you don’t take a nap now, you won’t be rested enough for your 2 o’clock nap this afternoon.” I didn’t argue. Sleep was the only one that seemed to have my best interest at heart.

I eventually showed Fatigue, Weakness, Nausea and Vomit the door, but they occasionally returned. I invited Sleep to stay indefinitely. 

A few weeks after the last chemo infusion, I had a CT and bone scan. The bone scan was easy. Just lay as still as possible for 45 minutes as the scanner does its business. Sleep would sometimes visit during bone scans.

The CT scan takes less time, but the prep sucks. The night before I had to drink 16 ounces of barium, which tastes like liquid chalk with a squirt of lemon. That is supposed to help it taste better. It doesn’t. Nausea and Vomit got all excited thinking they would be making an appearance, but I managed to keep it down. The next day an hour before the CT, I had to drink another 16 ounces. Then when arriving I was given an injection of radioactive solution. As I walked into the scan room, a technician was opening a bottle of barium. “No thanks! I’ve had my fill already.” She told me I just needed to drink a cup. I chugged it and kept it down. Then lie down on the scanner table. Slide in the tube, hold my breath, slide in further, hold breath and breathe out. This procedure is repeated after the contrast dye is injected into my vein, which is a strange sensation. Kind of like a mini roller coaster in your body. You feel it going into your vein, chugging up to your shoulders and then plummets to your crotch.  It feels like you’ve peed your pants. 

Two days later I had an appointment with MacDuff for the results. This was the most anxious I had ever felt up to this point of my cancer journey. If the report was bad, where would I go from there? He came in, sat down, and started looking at the computer screen. Should I wait for him to speak? Or rip off my mask and scream, “Tell me! Just tell me!!” He turned to me and said, “Well, your scans look good. There is no sign of disease.” I tentivaley asked, “So this means I’m in remission?” Yes, it does. Yay! Huge sigh of relief. He went on to say that it doesn’t mean I’m cured. Boo!  

The next phase was monitoring with CT, MRI and bone scans every three months. There was a 50-60% chance of recurrence with lung cancer. Thanks for raining on my parade, MacDuff. If I could get through two years with clear scans, the chances of recurrence were less. If I could get past five years, the odds were even better in my favor. Okay, I’ve got a difficult wait and see road to travel. However, at that moment I was cancer free!!!! I added Ms. Remission to my friend’s list. 

All those jokes I made about becoming a mutant and getting super powers? Turns out my cancer was positive for Met-Exon 14 skipping mutation. Sounds like a happy little guy, doesn’t it? It’s one of the more rare mutations. Only 2-3% of cancer patients have it. The good news was if I did have a recurrence, there was a targeted therapy treatment for it. 

MacDuff said he was optimistic about me. I was feeling more optimistic about me as well. I still needed to have the left thyroid removed to check if that nodule was cancerous, but that had been put on the back burner. I needed to recover more before crossing that bridge. 

My hair was growing back. In a couple of months, I could have worked as Judi Dench’s stand-in. Unfortunately, due to one of the chemo drugs, I began to experience some hearing loss. I gained an annoying new friend, Tinnitus. He is here to stay. Closed captioning is another friend.

I was hoping Ms. Remission would be a permanent resident as well. However, that was not meant to be. Therefore, this is not the last chapter of my story. I am doing my best to stay positive and hopefully I will get another victory cake someday.