Sometimes you have a vision of how your life is going to go. I had a great plan of biking a lot to get myself into shape and juicing to help get the liver a real good kick start to regrowing. None of that seemed to ever get on track. Shortly after coming home while going to the restroom, I popped my back out of place and have been miserable since. Along the way, I also got a hemorrhoid and picked up intestinal problems associated with the removal of my gallbladder. We didn't even know that my gallbladder was removed until I got ready to take my 50th chemo treatment and read the post operative report. It was distressed and needed to come out. I wish the surgeon would have said something, because I have been fighting painful diarrhea within 20 minutes of eating anything. That leads to no nutrition making it into your system, fatigue from having to stay up to 2 and 3 in the morning, and all around general misery. It's not good for a colon cancer patient to not take in nutrients, and the intestine will already get challenged from the disease and chemo. The excess bile from the liver gets stored in the gallbladder and get slowly released into the intestines to help breakdown fatty foods, without the gallbladder it dumps into the intestine directly without any regulation and thus the problem. Long term issues may never be fixed, but a diet change and some supplements will help. Do I have anyone thinking their life is mucho better yet?
I did finally get into to see my back doctor (it only took a month of agony) to get shots which has helped over the last 2 weeks. Thursday I start a physical therapy regimen to help build up strength again to my core.
I did take my 50th chemo treatment. Cheryl, Cari and Paige all were there in attendance. They got me a 50 balloon and the chemo nurses got me a blanket and sang me a song. I was quite emotional any very touched. I am in a pretty small class at this point, there are only a few above me with more treatments and fighting hard to stay alive for a cure. We all have goals and things we still want to experience before we pass and doing our damnedest to do it.
I recently signed back up with Facebook to catch up with everyone again, but I am still going to post to this blog. I still feel this is the best way to say and to express the full experience with friends and family.
Besides my personal health, I wanted to take a minute and give a shout out to a couple of people in my life. Cheryl took on all my ailments and still had to deal with getting her own thyroid removed. She did this the day before my 50th chemo. Her results came back negative for cancer. She is so strong and I am so ever proud of her and glad she is by my side. I also have a friend who has fought colon cancer like me tooth and nail. Even though his battle is coming to an end and will wait for us to join him with our heavenly father, his courage to have some sense of control to comfort family and friends moves me so much. I always think of how do you know when to say enough is enough and try to "sneak out of the room" quickly and cause as little pain as possible. Maybe GOD does speak when its time. On the complete other end of the emotional scale, congrats to my sister for having a beautiful baby girl last night. This was one of those goals that I wanted to be around for and I am so thankful for more time given to me. I don't know how long I will be around and if she will even get old enough to remember me, but I held her in my arms last night and it was wonderful. Uncle Jeff won't mind a few baby sitting jobs and some stinky diapers.
As always, thank you for reading and caring,
Love Jeff
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