The results of Monday's ultrasound and MRI are not available yet but I intend to comment as soon as I have word.  Sometimes people ask me if I/we have altered our eating habits since my diagnosis.  I am working on a post about this.  Also, some people have taken my advice to heart and got checked out either by taking the FIT test or by having a colonoscopy.  Great!  Super!  Nothing could please me more!  If you haven't already, please get checked:  you are worth it!

103. Chemo Monthly CEA and other Labs

Yesterday I had labwork/bloodwork done for the month.  I am happy to announce that, although the CEA level is not yet within normal/healthy range, it has been on the decline since May.  It has come down from 11.3 to 7.7 yesterday.  "Normal" is lower than 5.  I'll remind you that my last chemo treatment was on May 3rd.  So it is heading in the right direction.   It isn't going as fast as I would like it to, but I am pleased nevertheless.  The other bloodwork seemed good also!  For info on CEA please read post nr. 97.

I'll be posting another post by the end of the weekend.  Stay Healthy and Safe and enjoy Summer!  SanTeh!

102. Chemo A-Sailing We Will Go

We grew up close to the North Sea, closer to a river ending up in the North Sea, closest to a canal ending up in the river that ends up in the North Sea.  But even though ships of all makes and sizes were all around us, we never actually set foot on one: we were landlubbers.  Even so, sea faring made a lasting impression.  For my sister that meant marrying a maritimer from Nova Scotia; for me that meant taking sailing lessons at age 44, quite some time ago.  

It was a week-long beginners sailing course at Last Mountain Lake, under the tutelage of Harry S., a local teacher and sailing afictionado.  The first and last 2 days are a blur to me, but the Wednesday sticks out like a wet herring.  Monday and Tuesday were spent learning "exhilarating" stuff such as: tying knots and ropes, blowing a whistle, etc.  Wednesday we finally got down to brass tacks and were teamed up, 2 beginners, myself and this other girl in an actual small sail boat!  Oh the excitement!   Now I know what you are thinking:  What were they thinking?, "they" being the instructors.  But we, the beginners did not foresee any problems at all because we were so gung-ho to finally get out onto the lake!  Setting out tacking was no problem, in fact it was heaven!  We felt like old pros.  Piece of cake!  We even congratulated ourselves on managing to turn the boat around.  "High 5!"  But then came a huge gust of wind up from behind and all of a sudden the tide turned so to speak and we were out of control, with sails, ropes, beams, arms and legs all over the place!  You guessed it: we ended up in the water, the boat overturned with the tip of the mast stuck into the silty bottom.  Try as we might the other girl and I could not upright the boat, so we had no choice but to blow our whistles with all our might.  Good thing we had been practicing that for 2 days!  Eventually, and luckily before hypothermia set in, a couple of instructor assistants came to the rescue.  The other girl managed to hoist herself into the boat with the grace of a sea otter.  I: not so much.  With nothing but water underneath my feet I did not have the strength to launch myself and had to be hauled in like a wet oversized cod.  I did stay for the remainder of the course, but the thrill was gone.

On my way home, I stopped to pick up some groceries.  Other shoppers gave me curious looks probably thinking I was a battered wife because I was bruised from neck to toe.

I have not taken any more sailing lessons since.  Mind you, I did buy a paddleboard a few years ago.  No sails to worry about for one.  And I have been trying to make a contraption to enable myself to climb back on should I fall into deep waters. Hmmm...😓 Best not to fall!!! 😎

I waited 2 days in Halifax once for a chance to go sailing on the Bluenose.  I would get up really early every morning so I would not miss out.  After 2 days' waiting for the fog to lift, I gave up.  Oh well!  This week labs for the month are due.  Back when the results are in. Fingers crossed!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5CNZwbY9Uo   Abc wals = Dutch sea chanty; link may not work on computer; works on phone though!   

101. Chemo Finger Lickin' Fingers and Toes!

Mel B. came for a visit the other day.  And that reminded me of a story she told me at the beginning of my chemo treatment, which triggered an experiment I did later on.  So I had to try it again the other night just to verify if it would still work.  It did.  If you don't believe me, go ahead and  try it for yourself...

Mel's husband passed away with cancer several years ago.  It was a blessing for him because radiation treatments had ravaged his body to the point where he had severe radiation burns.  Medical staff at he time tried anything and everything to alleviate the man's pain at the radiation site but nothing worked until one day, a nurse gave some "magic patches" to put on the wound.  The side of those patches closest to the skin was infused with raw honey!  Mel remembers that these honey patches would give her husband relief from his pain.  You may recall that one of my worst side effects from chemo is neuropathy, nerve damage to my fingers and toes.  It has been 2 months since my last treatment, but the neuropathy has not disappeared.  I have been using Dr. Joe's LiveRelief to get some relief: not bad, but expensive.  Then I remembered Mel's story and I smeared some honey on both hands and especially my fingers: instant relief!  I attributed this to wishful thinking at first. So I managed to talk 2 other ex-chemo patients into using the honey also and lo and behold they also found relief!  So I think there must be something to it, what and how I don't know.  It has to be raw unadulterated honey, a honey substitute will not do!  Of course the drawbacks are obvious: you end up with sticky fingers and as a result can't touch anything (a dandy way of getting out of doing housework! 😉).  And some time after you wash off the honey the side effects will come back.  So the relief is only temporary, but it is relief nevertheless!   Now if Someone were to manage to extract the healing components out of honey without the stickiness, this someone could be the next multimillionaire!  How about You? 😉

 Back in a couple of days or right after the weekend.  SanTeh!

100.Chemo Well Heeled

My first serious job in Belgium in the 70s was working in a bank.  It was a prestigious, well established place, located in the heart of the city, with a huge marble-floored lobby, lots of oak paneling on the walls and shiny brass accents everywhere.   It was the place where the well heeled of the city did their transactions and entrusted their money.  I was hired as a data entry clerk, sitting in a cubicle behind the scenes. The wage was more than good and I was eager to spend some of my cash! 

It so happened that on my way to and from work I had to walk by a small boutique selling fashion and footwear imported from Britain, very in vogue at the time!  One evening I spotted them in the window: a pair of knee-height black velvet boots with 2 inch stiletto heels! I was smitten!  I had to have them!  I was going to show the fuddy-duddy co-workers in the bank what real fashion was all about!  So I bought them, tucked the box under my arm and headed for home.  My parents, who had survived the depression and lean war years were not impressed.  "You spent your money on THIS?"  But their reaction did not deter me from wearing my purchase to work the next morning.

Now I ask you: at what point in your life does a person develop a brain?  If I had one at the time I made little use of it.  Instead of taking the box to work and wearing the boots there, I traveled to and from work wearing them.  I should mention that we lived in the suburbs, that I had a 15 minute walk to the bus stop, then a bus ride and another 10-15 minute walk in the city on cobbled streets before reaching the bank.  Walking in 2 inch stiletto heeled boots is an art form I never possessed, not then and even less now.  So I missed my regular bus, because try as I may, I could not get there in time.  Once in the city, the cobblestoned pavement presented another challenge.  I managed to swerve from lamp post to lamp post to keep more or less in an upright position, much like a drunken sailor after several wild nights.  Arriving at the bank I would straighten up and glide somewhat gracefully through the lobby to my cubicle, to the amusement of the tellers situated behind the counters.  Lucky for me the manager's door was closed.

The second day went much as the first, except that this time, when the tellers saw me making "my entrance", two jolly older males cupped their hands around their mouths and proclaimed to the others: "Here comes the leaning tower of Pisa!"  Also the manager's door was slightly ajar this time.

When I entered the bank on the third day,  I was late again of course.  This time the manager stood in the doorway of his office, cigar in mouth, hands on hips.  He did not say anything, only squinted at me.  It was then that I got this sinking feeling, that perhaps wearing these boots might not be such a good idea; that I could get fired over this!  But the straw that really broke the camel's back was when, at the end of the day, standing at the bus stop waiting for my ride home, I was approached, proposed to and offered some money by two "gentlemen".

The boots survived the move to Canada, where in an attempt to recover some of my "investment" I wore them to a couple of Halloween parties.  Then they ended up in a musty basement somewhere, where they quickly deteriorated.  

And if I remember correctly, my next purchase were a pair of Birkenstocks: Sensible Shoes! 

  

I'll be back at the end of next week.  Come sailing with me then!  Take care! SanTeh!

99. Chemo Money Talks

During my treatment for colon cancer, the subject of money would come up now and again.  For example: every time I went, the pharmacy would wait to make my chemo batch till I got at the clinic in case I , or any other patient for that matter, would not show up and the drug treatment would be wasted, because each dose gets tailored to the patient's needs.  When  quizzing the staff about it, the response would be:  "Oh!  The treatment is soo expensive!"  The same thing went for the CEA (carcinoembryonic antigen) blood test: "Oh! It is soo expensive!"  Being a curious person I asked the  pharmacist what the cost of my treatment (Folfox) was.  She looked it up and said: $200,00.  Mind you that was just for the chemo drugs alone, not including the chair time at the clinic, the nursing staff, the oncology appointments, the anti-nausea drugs, etc.  That would also add up of course.  But as far as the cancer drugs themselves were concerned, due to having been around for several decades, mine was one of the cheapest treatments by far.  Some newer immunotherapies cost tens of thousands of dollars per treatment.  Even so, with mine being the more reasonable one, you have to also consider that I had 12 treatments in all.  So everything times 12.  Lucky for us, our Canadian health care system pays for it all!  I hate to think about what would happen, if we did not have the coverage that we have, like a lot of people in the U.S. for instance, or worse yet, no treatment available at all like in some parts of the world.  Yikes!  "Fortunate" cancer patients that we are!!  😏

98. Chemo Beste Klasgenootjes!

Dag Dames van de Economische!  t'Was maar om te laten weten dat Hilde en Karel hier inderdaad langs zijn geweest op weg naar Alaska.  We hebben een fijn bezoek gehad!  Goed wat bijgebabbeld!  Dat moet een van de volgende jaren nog eens herhaald worden!  Sommigen gaven instructies aan Hilde om me ne knuffel te geven.  Awel se: ge krijgt er van mij ene of meerdere terug! xxx  Allerbeste wensen, vooral voor een goede gezondheid: heel belangrijk!!!  SanTee!!  Daaaag!  Irm