Recovery mail 4 : Sweet sixteen
Wednesday, December 8 2004
Dear Friends around the Globe,
Here’s just an email to say hello to you all and tell you how I’m doing. Through my blog on http://www.van-willigen.net, I like to take our communication to the next level and provide you with more of Rogier! The website now contains these Recovery mails, but also features some pictures of me (oh boy). I’m worn out by the chemotherapy, but : Thirteen chemo’s down, three to go. My tumor and me celebrated my birthday on November 4 in close harmony.
The whole sixteen yards
A couple of weeks ago my doctors decided that it would be best for me to go through a total of 16 instead of 12 treatments of chemotherapy, mainly because of the original size of the tumor and partly because “I’m enduring the treatment so well”. This decision has nothing to do with lack of progress of my treatment (which is good), but with optimizing chances of going through chemotherapy only once. I’m still getting chemo every two weeks.
A beat or two
The side-effects on my heart seemed to stabilize a little until three weeks ago, when I experienced some problems in the evening. Suddenly my heart rate went through the roof, I felt dizzy, my fingers and toes were tingling and I felt really uncomfortable and completely restless. Two roommates were with me and since my situation didn’t improve, we decided to call an ambulance. The medics diagnosed me with hyperventilation and could quite easily get me over that in 30 minutes or so. What caused me to hyperventilate is unknown. My hematologist doctor decided to make an appointment for me with a cardiologist to make sure my heart is good condition. However, her opinion is still that there is no reason to expect serious problems with my heart – other than suffering from side-effects. This was a very scary experience.
There was one funny moment, when the medics arrived and asked me “whether I was perhaps taking any medicine at present”. I was lying on my bed and just pointed to the floor right next to it, which looks like a small pharmacy. We asked them whether we could give them a refill of any of their supplies.
As a result of the chemotherapy, the veins in my arms are completely hard. This is the case already for some months and it is quite amazing veins can get that hard. My doctor calls them ‘cables of steel’ and indeed, they feel more like tendons (“pezen”) than veins. I’m applying a salve daily with limited success. I believe it is the formation of scar tissue in the veins, where the concentration of cytostatica is the highest. I can imagine my heart objecting a little when the same medicine, though slightly diluted, flow through the chambers of my heart.
Psychological experiment
I promised to keep you informed on Mind vs Body. Well, Conditioning is on the upper hand. My vomiting became so severe lately during the administration of chemotherapy that my doctors decided to give me stronger anti-nausea drugs (to get me a little high and stop vomiting). Even these stronger drugs didn’t work enough unfortunately, so that the last time I got even stronger drugs. This is of course the traditional Dutch approach to problems.
These last medicine made me sleep for some 20 minutes during the administration of chemotherapy, which I find remarkable. I still vomited three times… but hey, that’s already a lot less than before haha 
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Trivia…
- I’ve spent a weekend in the outskirts of the Netherlands with 11 friends. It was really nice to see them all and have some fun. When you’re ill for a longer period, you don’t get to see your friends in the same situations as you normally do. This weekend was exactly such an occasion – only this time I was present. Some (censored) pictures on the web.
- My hair is growing again. Unmistakably, my hair is growing. It is not curly and the density of hairs (hairs.cm-2) is much less, but nonetheless.
- Although I had to stop all academic and advisory work, I still manage to keep attending nearly all classes of my Spanish and golf courses!
- Tomorrow I’m going to a fantastic spa-resort with Sanne – it’s my birthday present! We’re getting a ‘Feel Good-treatment’ (I’ll be a tough case for them) and best of all, we’re going to be completely packed in cacao!
If all goes well, my final treatment of chemotherapy will be on January 14, which is only six weeks down the road. Trust me, I’m counting the days.
Love, Rogier