It’s been over 100 days since I underwent a stem-cell transplant for two smoldering blood cancers. The good news is both cancers got zapped in the process and now it’s on to rebuilding my immune system and moving beyond my current welterweight standing to normal weight and activities. Right now I feel like an eleven year-old on an urban sidewalk swaying to the rhythm of things, waiting for the right time to jump in on a game of double-dutch. In my case, it is waiting to blog again.
I’ve been in a pre-transplant hospitalization period since mid-October, with a break in December, before the more intensive drug treatment that lead up to the transplant in early January. In my case I needed an outside donor, and I was fortunate to find one with a perfect match. I still marvel, at moments in theological terms, at how this anonymous donor disrupted his life, and gave of himself, so that I can heal and move on. Heady stuff.
Over the past few months, in mostly zombie states of awareness, I experienced the physical effects of intensive chemo, a spook word if there ever was one. (Why is there no euphemism for the words “chemo therapy”? After all, all chemos are drugs, but we don’t say we are taking chemo when we drop an Advil for a headache or when we take insulin for diabetes!)
While I was somewhat prepared for the physical side effect, I was totally caught off guard with the mental effects of the drugs. It was something I was not prepared for, nor something anyone else prepared me for, including the doctors. As a person who lives in “my mind”—new ideas every day, seeing the world differently, looking for variations and precedents in the order of things, searching for blog material, I was not ready for a “loss of mind”—loss of the ability to concentrate, remember things, focus, spell correctly, and manage a short attention span. It all went so quickly one morning, or one night…I don’t recall.
This mental side they now even more thoughtlessly call “chemo brain”. Oncologists, like other medical specialists, still emphasize the physical over the mental. More than missing the connection between the two, they miss the impact of drug therapy on the mind. While it is true the mental symptoms are not “visible”, it is nonetheless true that the mental effects are equally devastating, maybe more so because of the surprise element. At least it was in my case.
The only blessing of the mental affects is that my attention span for redundant MSN and cable coverage of the presidential race is short. It seems that everyone is saying the same thing, asking the same questions, backing the same early horses, and trying to hype early-on cattle calls, focusing mainly on two or three fat cats, (to mix metaphors) leaving the calves to fend for themselves. If truth be told, its the cable anchor folks who are have chemo brain. Or is it "chemo mouth".
So in a day or two, maybe after the Repug cattle call later this week, I'll start posting again, if you don't mind. It's a good cure for chemo brain.
Ramblin' Guys
Jerry Bowles
J.A. Bartlett
Culture Warriors
Groom Lake
Blackdogred
Political Pundocrity
John McCreery
Josh Hammond
Michael Scott
Leftcoast
Krugies
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