Not a lot new happening this week. As previously reported started treatment number 2 and working myself out of the brace. So far things are going well. This week we are going to talk about the pros and cons of having cancer. Yeah I know as previously reported cancer sucks, so how can there be pros? Everything can have upside if you look hard enough. We will start however with the easy part.

Cons:

First on the list is cancer can break your back and a broken back sucks. Even I can not find the upside of a broken back. Takes a long time to heal and there isn’t much you do that doesn’t involve engaging your back.

Number two Needles. I have a bit of a phobia about things in my veins. It freaks me out. Now I got people prospecting in there multiple times a week like it’s a gold rush. I don’t mind the treatment shot it’s like a vaccine shot in the leg. Most weeks I am getting multiple needles and while tolerable it’s not fun.

Down time/resting. I hate the phrase “Give your body time to heal.” I am a goal oriented person and sitting back waiting just doesn’t feel like progress. I am mostly on the other side of this now but the first month was pretty frustrating.

Side effects: One of the side effects of the steroids is “changes in the shape or location of body fat (especially in your arms, legs, face, neck, breasts, and waist).” This means the aforementioned cankles and also a lump one my neck. While not the worse possible side effect by far I am not a fan.

Which brings us to the drugs. To keep my sanity I like to put these in four different categories to attempt to keep them all straight. First there is the cancer killers, there is two pills one shot. Totally manageable. Then there is the pills I take to proactively prevent the side effects. There are a lot of these both over the counter and under the counter. I got one of those old people pill containers with the days of the week and times of the day. The wife fills it up every week. Then there are the as needed for pain and discomfort pills, I got a variety of pain and muscle relaxers should they be needed. Finally we have the if you get this side effect take two of these and call me in the morning pills. There are bottles of these which I haven’t had to open, three different nausea medications, as well as a variety of other pills for other side effects that I have on hand in case I develop some side effect. It’s a lot to keep track of and all together annoying.

Ok enough bitching now it’s time to look at the Pros of Cancer

Coming in at number one is the Cancer card. When you get diagnosed with cancer you can basically get what ever you want (within reason (sometimes)). Yeah I just hit you with the double parenthesis deal with it. The best part about this is I hardly ever have to play it, people play it for me in their head. I am coming over for dinner, I get to pick what we are having. I want to buy new recording equipment and a new guitar in the same month, no problem. It’s even transferable, one of my friends who is married with three young kids I normally see twice a year. This month we hung out twice. He is using my cancer card to hang out with me at a brewery.

90% of the time I don’t even have to mention it. People just use it without me saying anything. The only time I did use it was when I needed a friend to come up and lay down some vocals. The conversation went like this:

• Me: Need you to come up and finish the vocals we talked about.
• Him: My wife is nine months pregnant and can’t put on her own shoes I don’t think I am going to be a be able to make it
• Me: They got a cure for pregnancy don’t they? Cause I got the cancer and there is no cure.
• Him: I will see you Sunday

Boom there isn’t any coming back from that. The cancer card is the gift that keeps giving.

Then there is the food. Going through chemo losing weight is not good. You want to pound the protein to keep you platelets and immune system humming along. This is obviously a issue for people who get nausea while being treated but so far I have dodged that bullet. I have been eating like a king. The other day for lunch I made a sandwich with Peanut Butter, strawberry preserve that I then dipped in french toast batter and breaded with crushed frosted flakes and fried in butter. That’s three eggs, and peanut butter loaded with protein. It was a cancer killing sandwich and it was amazing.

By the way I just explained this sandwich and you didn’t think “this guy is going to die of obesity before the cancer gets him.” You were thinking he’s got cancer good for him for eating what he wants. See you are playing my cancer card and I’m not even there.

My wife also makes me whatever I want for dinner on treatment days. This week was fried chicken, cream corn and potato salad. The wife says I have to state that the cream corn was made from scratch and NOT out of a can.

Enough about food this is starting to make me hungry. Another Pro is hearing from friends and family more. These last six weeks I’ve got to hang out or talk to a lot of people I haven’t seen or heard from in awhile.

Then there is the time while “waiting for my body to heal” to work on some recording projects I haven’t had time to complete. I have been playing guitar hours a day and learning some new tricks. Yes I am listing the time to heal as both a pro and a con. I am a paradox, deal with it.

Ok this blog is starting to get into the too many words to read realm so I will stop here. Tuesday starts my week off of treatment and I starting working from home on Wednesday. I should be able to start physical therapy sometime next week too!