Lyrical: Chemophila Morning

"Chemo is my friend"

These words were spoken to the chemo nurse by her very first patient in 1980. That nurse is Mrs Blogger's Mother's Identical Cousin, now retired (whom Babtsia, the older two girls, and I stayed with when I went to Los Angeles as a Jeopardy contestant in 2009).

On Saturday, as we lingered in the Walgreen's parking lot, hesitating before claiming the first of many prescriptions, Mrs Blogger and I had a wonderful call from her. Mostly it persuaded me that God has already worked my miracle through modern science, which has turned MCL from 3-5yr death sentence to 10+ year (and more) survivable in just the last 15 years.

I've been using the "Chemo is my friend" sentiment to try to visualize the chemo working. If psychosomatic powers can cause illness, I believe they can also cure illness.

I've always been highly suggestible illness-wise. Ask me if I have nausea, and my stomach will start to knot. Tell me about your itchy contacts, and I will start to cry. Ask if I have any allergic reactions, and I will feel myself blush.

So I have been visualizing my Rituxan-activated immune system as t-Cell Pac-Men devouring the B cells in my tumor. I also picture the Bendamustine blistering and exploding my tumor cells at the moment they try to divide.

The working title of this interior movie is "Chemo is my friend" or Chemophilia.

The happy thing is I believe it is working.

Before chemo, my neck had been tender particularly where the tumor has assumed a bullet shape as it forces itself down a lymphatic tube. As it stretched a coffee-stirrer-sized lymphatic tube into a finger sized lump, any place on the bullet tip was sore yesterday. Now it feels like the tumor has been driven back just enough to ease the worst of the tube-stretching pain.

I believe I am also experiencing the same thing with my mysterious hip pain, which I have recently connected to the ileo-cecal tumor found in the colonoscopy. Before yesterday, any walking or standing motion could trigger the little stab of pain. As I awoke this morning it has been hard to actually move enough to trigger that pain.

In both cases I picture that the tumor might have pulled back just 1%, but enough to be no longer pushing on the envelope of "regular me" around it. We actually are expecting the tumors to shrink 99.9% in the next 4 weeks (if the lump is a billion cells, that would leave me cosmetically cured but still in mortal danger with a million cells still there, and so still in need of many more rounds to drive it to zero, especially as the remaining cells are the mutants resistant to early rounds)

So depending on the shape of the remission curve, we could be expecting shrinkage of anywhere between 1% and 10% per day over the next 2 to 4 weeks. That is a happy thought indeed.

I will bike to work today, and think that the only thing that will keep me from biking home may be the Benadryl. We will install the bike rack on the back of the minivan against this contingency.

*From anatomy drawings it does appear that my gut tumor and my right hip pain are in basically the same location.  It ileocecal valve is in the groove of one's right hip, and my gut tumor was scoped right at the junction between the ileum (small intestine) and cecum (lowest part of the right ascending colon).