I feel like what started out as a "chronicle of my cancer-nous" blog has quickly turned into a weight watchers blog once I started chemo. Constantly monitoring what I eat has been weird...like that part in "Jaws" where they cut open that Tiger shark and start pulling all of that weird junk out of its stomach, and today is no exception. I actually felt pretty decent much of today, and here's the junkyard goat diet that helped facilitate that:
- 3/4 of a waffle and four strawberries. Morning was a bit rough, but I was able to get this food down.
- One halloween cupcake. The women in my office like to bake, but I believe they're not allowed to bake unless the food is made into some kind of a theme...hence me devouring a cupcake with orange frosting and tiny chocolate bat sprinkles on it.
- Two slices of gas station pizza. This was....a bold move...for somebody on chemo. It sounded like the correct move at the time, however, and nothing so far has told me otherwise. Time will tell on this one.
- One bag of cookies out of the snack bin at work.
- One ham sandwich, plain, eaten like a ham-eating zombie.
- Three bowls of cottage cheese. That deserves repeating...THREE FREAKING BOWLS OF COTTAGE CHEESE. Oddly enough, someone posted a picture on Facebook of themself happily eating cottage cheese, and my stomach said, "Yeah...I want to be that happy." Fast forward to me driving home from work and plowing through a container of large curds like some sort of dairy vampire (that cupcake put my metaphors in a holiday mood, apparently)
- One package of chocolate donettes. If you think I mistyped, you're incorrect...these are the plastic-coated Donettes because they were generic and thus I couldn't take the brown-coconut looking crumb ones (there's a system).
Aside from monitoring my stomach constantly, sure that if chemo causes nausea on its own that two slices of gas station pizza and three bowls of cottage cheese were going to tango like a 50s street gang, the day was pretty good. It felt good to put in a full day at work, and it's days like today that make me realize how happy, and humbling, it is to be the editor of a small town paper. For tomorrow's edition, and I don't kid at all, I wrote two felony crime stories, one column musing on the lack of choice in our political two-party system (Using "I'm not partisan, but I'm political" compared to people that say "I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual"), included pictures from the homecoming powderpuff game and had one letter to the editor run about a lady who had money stolen from her out of a cooler that she had on the honor system for peopel that wanted to buy eggs. That is freaking variety...and awesome.
For those who are interested, if anyone is diagnosed with cancer in the future and has to cope with chemo (I know you're all keeping your fingers crossed), I've found the cure for the chemo symptoms: terry cloth robes. It's amazing and makes me feel like an early-50s pervo. Oddly, my wife was channeling me today when she called me at work with "something very important" and made me look up a website for adult footy pajamas. This made me second-guess my choice of terry cloth robes, as these pieces of clothing, which they endearingly refer to as "Uni-Lazys" look like you have completely thrown up your hands and given up on the world. I can only hope I don't give off that vibe when I wear my robe. Even better than the horrifying embrace of the public to this product are the testimonials (https://www.orderforeverlazy.com/Testimonials) which can be read from the perspective of the following description: "A group of people who were told that a piece of clothing is available that requires them to remove less while going to the bathroom," or, more specifically, "like wearing diapers you don't have to change." It's truly a disturbing read, and will give you a list of people that have given up on societal norms and decided to forge a path ahead based solely on comfort. That's a dangerous game.
No side effects that they warned me about with the chemo so far other than slight nausea....disappointingly, no "moon face," "Doug Funny legs," or "Leguizamo-nose."
Taking EMT classes for my part-time firefighter gig has made this whole experience much more interesting, however. Today we learned about IVs, and I felt like I had a complete leg-up on the entire class. After all, learning to spike an IV bag is near-instinct when you've watched a nurse do it daily for five days straight, along with checking your blood pressure. I almost offered to let everyone in the class "feel my port," but felt it wouldn't transfer well after being said aloud, so instead I joked about documenting the administration of candy to diabetics ("Do we have to document whether it's 'Fun Size,' 'Regular,' or 'King Size,' and does the dosage double if it's a Twix?")
I've been receiving so many questions from friends, family members, co-workers and random people about having testicular cancer that I've decided to share a few of the Q&A's with the rest of you who haven't had the opportunity to pester a guy with cancer on mundane topics. I'll close out this blog post with "Ask a guy with cancer."
**
Dear Guy with Cancer,
How do you feel?
-
Dear Concerned,
Not bad for a guy who planned on spending the fall finishing up his kitchen renovation and instead had his plans shifted slightly to remove one ball, all of his hair and be given a nine-week hangover.
**
Dear Guy with Cancer,
Are you hanging in there?
-
Dear 'hanging,'
Yes. It's not like I have any other option...despite all the "battle against cancer" metaphors out there, there's not really any way for me to give up (unless it involves order a "Uni-lazy," and shipping takes longer than my chemo will). If anything, chemo has given me permission to be lazier, so I'm hanging even more than usual.
**
Dear Guy with Cancer,
Are you going to shave your head all at once when your hair starts falling out?
-
Dear shaver,
No. My wife is actually really excited with what to do with my hair first...last time I checked, she was opting for a checkerboard pattern. This will raise some eyebrows at work.
**
Dear Guy with Cancer,
Does it feel weird having one testicle?
-
Dear testicularly concerned,
Not really. I never spent a great deal of time in the past taking inventory down there, and surprisingly my posture has improved greatly since my surgery (and I've lost 10 pounds). Coincidence? Unlikely.
**
Dear Guy with Cancer,
There are ribbons for breast cancer, organ donation, domestic violence...is there one for testicular cancer?
-
Dear ribbon touter,
Likely, as without ribbons touting bad stuff like a freaking terror alert code, none of us would ever know how to feel about a subject and we wouldn't have a secret code to let other half-sackers know who we are. These ribbons are like Jesus fish...they used to stand as a code to let others know who was awesome, but now they're freaking everywhere and can be bought in magnet form in gas stations by someone with a buck fifty and low willpower for garbage. It's for this reason that testicular cancer survivors have taken to using "Truck Nutz" as a signal of hope and strength for our movement. Rest be assured...if you see someone driving around with a pair of "Truck Nuts" on their vehicle, they're either a testicular cancer survivor or a redneck...but either way they've got less than two balls.
No comments:
Post a Comment