Medicated goo

Meanwhile back in 2010...

My sweetie had begun receiving daily radiation treatments for the tumor in his lung. Pretty quick and easy...it was not unlike getting an x-ray. Every day we'd show up at 9am and wait our turn. We'd go into the back and he'd strip off his jacket and shirt and hop up on the table. I'd hang out and watch while the techs got him lined up properly and inserted the lead shield that would direct the beam of radiation, then follow them out of the room to watch on a monitor as he received his treatment. In and out. It really only took a minute.

He was scheduled to start getting his chemo at the end of the first week of radiation, but he had to meet with his new oncologist first. Enter his mom... She decided that she wanted to meet the oncologist and was going to come to that appointment, and she did. We arrived for the appointment and discovered she was already there waiting for us, notebook at the ready. We got his radiation out of the way and then went to sit in the lobby where he had some new forms to fill out while waiting. I remember my sweetie sitting there trying to fill out the paperwork while his mom kept giving me sad looks and fussing with his hair. I was giving her the silent treatment. I did not want her to be there, she was fouling the atmosphere with her negative 'this is all hopeless' attitude.

Body language speaks volumes and my sweetie was increasingly leaning away from her and toward me as he struggled through the forms while she continued stroking his hair. Finally he had enough. "Mom! I don't think I care about my hair as much as you seem too" he said, batting her hand away. She immediately stopped her fawning and asserted that she did in fact care about more than his hair - but I didn't really believe her. I hadn't had a single conversation with her since January that didn't include her mentioning his hair and how awful it would be if it fell out. For my part I'd told him before he even started getting treated that while I also thought he had the prettiest hair ever, it really wasn't the most important thing in the world to me and I'd still love him til the end of time even if he was bald.

Shortly after that, my sweetie was called back to meet the doctor and discuss his chemotherapy treatments. He, his mom and I were now sitting in a small exam room listening to the doctor talk and she was again taking copious notes. I remember having a feeling of deja vu. She was asking questions about the treatment and...possible hair loss. *sigh* The doctor told us that the chemo they wanted to try did not typically cause hair loss. My brain was doing a boogaloo. I thought 'Ha!!! In yer face woman!'. I think I may have even cracked a smile. Soon enough the meeting was over. He would receive the chemo once a week for the next 6 or 7 weeks, each session would take about 2 and a half hours.

His mom offered to drive him to his appointments and we politely refused. I spoke up and said 'I can get him to his appointments, no problem' - and he was happy to let me. Over the next month and a half she kept offering. If not her, then maybe this friend of hers that lived near us? No? She knows so many people that want to help. I took offense at that. It felt like she was implying that I was incapable of taking care of this or she thought I didn't really want to do it. Couldn't be farther from the truth, really. I had decided to become his human shield and wanted to protect him from the many well intentioned people who wanted to 'help' him. Many of his moms friends are 'spiritual' people who wanted to take this opportunity to bring him the good word and 'raise his spirit'. (For the record my sweetie maintained that he was an atheist.) Neither of us are church going people and it would have been uncomfortable for both of us.

We met with a nutritionist who gave us a lot of helpful advice about his diet and we attended a 'class', more of a meeting really, to learn about chemo and what to expect from it. He was being prescribed a mild form of chemotherapy and we were surprised to learn that most people not only didn't lose their hair from it but they actually felt good after their treatments. Really? I'd always heard chemo left you feeling weak and sick. This was big news! We left the class actually looking forward to starting the chemo.

Even so, I was pretty nervous the day of his first chemo appointment. I was sitting in the infusion room keeping one eye on him and the other on the iv bag as it slowly dripped into his arm. After about an hour, I began to relax a bit. They'd said that if he was going to have a reaction to the drugs, it'd happen right away. But there wasn't a negative reaction, in fact he looked quite relaxed...and a little stoned. We sat there watching the big tv hanging from the ceiling by his chair and every so often a nurse would come by to change one iv bag for another. Two and a half hours later and he was done. We left and he surprised me by announcing he was hungry - he wanted some McDonalds. No problem! There's one very close to our house and I swung through the drive thru on the way home.

We got home, he ate his sandwich and then an amazing thing happened - he pulled his guitar down from the wall and started playing! Holy shit man! It wasn't until that moment that I realized he hadn't played his guitar since at least January. How the hell did I not notice that? He'd slowly stopped playing because of the pain in his arm and shoulder and amid all the drama I had somehow not noticed. He enthusiastically cranked out a few tunes - Cliffs of Dover, Purple Haze, For the love of God... My heart soared! This was a very good sign indeed! For him to have stopped playing he had to have been hurting pretty damn bad and just knowing that hurt me as well.

He was a huge lover of music and loved the guitar gods in particular being a guitarist himself. He turned me on to a lot of stuff that might have otherwise escaped my notice (thank you sweetie) and music was a constant in our house. Sometimes front and center, sometimes in the background - but always there. There were times when he was practicing or trying to learn something new that he drove me just a little bit insane, hearing the same brief bit over and over and over again. The seemingly endless repetition would get to me after a while and I'd beg him to take a break. Please, PLEASE!! For the love of every thing holy please play something else for an hour before I become homicidal! I always felt bad about that. We lived in a tiny one room apartment at the time but practicing is important and he had no place else where he could do it. I could have split for a while or found something to do outside...what if, what if. Listening to him play now, I had a hard time believing I'd ever found his playing annoying and I was acutely aware that one day it would be gone for good. I tried not to think about that and happily lapped up every note.

The chemo was helping and he was feeling better. We quickly fell into a routine; arrive in the morning, get zapped and leave, and plan to be there for a few hours on chemo day. While he was getting his chemo I'd jet across the skyway to the hospital cafeteria and grab him a sandwich and bottle of ice tea from their deli. (Hospitals have deli's now - who knew?) We'd eat our sandwiches and I'd draw while he watched tv or napped in the chair until it was time to go home. The chemo was having a noticeable effect, he was feeling better and it was lasting longer with each dose. We also got good news from the techs - one day after the daily zapping routine they asked us to stick around because the radiologist wanted to see my sweetie. They said it looked like the tumor was shrinking and they wanted to do another scan so they could fine tune the beam. The scan confirmed it - the tumor had shrunk significantly! The treatment was working! They made a new lead shield and we left in a celebratory mood.

I drove him downtown because he wanted to share the good news with his buddies at the guitar store. He loved that shop and thought the world of the dudes who own it - and they clearly liked him too. He promoted them shamelessly everywhere he went - stickers, word of mouth, he even had their store logo tattooed on his forearm. Like I said, he loved that shop. The fellas were glad to hear the news and my sweetie picked up some new strings for his guitar and a new t-shirt.

It was nearing the end of March and true to their word, the doctors were going to have my sweetie feeling better in time for summer. At least once a week they did a new scan and each time it showed more shrinkage. He had a large odd shaped sunburn from the radiation, but he still had all his hair and he was feeling more and more like his old self with each passing day. We started feeling like we might beat this thing.