I had another post planned and written for today but received some surprising news this afternoon so I decided to scrap it.

What are we all doing?  Really.  Why do we work 9-5 or whatever the hours may be just to live for stuff we don’t need in the first place?  What’s the point?  As more events occur in life, the more I am asking myself, “what am I doing?”.  Why do I sit in ten or more hours of traffic a week?  Because my job pays well and allows me to live a life I otherwise would have never dreamed, possibly?  But why?  Would I really “need” all these things.  It’s just stuff anyways.  Who fucking cares at the end of day.  Each and everyday I am beginning to value relationships and experiences more than anything else.  When it’s all said and done -all you leave behind is other people and memories.  That’s it.  How you affect people and places in this world are all what we leave.  Fuck it what am I really doing?  It makes me want to live off the grid in a hut on an island.  Living off the land (should probably be okay with touching fish and dead things).  So what there are some logistics to work out.  I hate ants too so that may be another obstacle.  Am I supposed to change the world?  I don’t have the energy for that.  Reality is people suck to deal with, so what am I really doing?  For what too?  For who?  All these questions to answer.  Where is my cancer epiphany?

The only words that truly are always in my mind are “if you have loved, cried and laughed in one day, then you have lived a full life that day” or something to that effect by Jimmy V.  It couldn’t be more true.

I am exhausted from being exhausted all the time.  I never feel rested or energized.  I know it has a lot to do with not sleeping and the meds I am taking, but truthfully it is exhausting.  I can’t believe I have to do this for another year and seven months.  I know most people would look at it like “yes, only one year and seven months to go”.  I just can’t right now.  I am tired.  I am run down.  I have had enough.  I feel like a zombie 99% of the time.  There isn’t enough caffeine on the planet to help me get through some of my days.

I ask myself these questions, pretty regularly:

Did I go back to work too soon?  Should I take a day off just to re-coupe?  Should I really be in ten plus hours of traffic every week?  Should I start taking sleep meds, because of course what is one more drug in the grand scheme of things?  Am I pushing myself too hard?  Do I need a vacation?  Do I just need a break?

Chemo Brain

Evidence it is real, people.  I am shocked that some of the effects last as long as they do, though.  I mean I know what it’s like to have the “fogginess” and lack of concentration.  It’s a lot of reason why reading is so difficult these days.  I love to read but it’s hard to get through it.  I read pages and then forget the next day what I just read.  It’s frustrating to say the least.  I hope at the end of this the fogginess goes away.

into that of a four year old’s sense of poop humor equivalent.  I laugh ridiculously hard at THE dumbest shit.  I can’t help it.  It’s like my brain died.  Farts are funny.  Maybe it’s just easier to laugh these days.  Doesn’t take much, that’s for sure.  Prime example is below.  I could not stop laughing seeing this.  It’s quite possible because, well I can relate but it’s just hilarious.  It is also possible because I am way to comfortable talking about such matters that it’s just life.  I guess over a year of the same people every week asking you about your bowel movements will do that.  I am de-sensitized.

Poop Funnies

After being back at work now for some time I have realized that work is different.  It’s not harder; it’s just different for me.  I have realized possibly from the chemo or being out of practice for so long that I HAVE TO WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN.  The days of just remembering from one day to the next are gone.  I have to write myself notes, write down conversations and utilize my calendar as much as possible.  I have to double check things more often and make sure I tell people the correct information but overall I hope it hasn’t affected my performance.  I knew there would be challenges to coming back to work.  It’s frustrating at times to not “just remember” when I know I should know the information, but can’t fucking recall it if my life depended upon it.  One day I will get back to that point I am sure of it.  Or at least still hold out hope for it.

Another aspect I am still getting used to is by the end of the day I am spent.  My load is blown.  I just want to get home and sit on my couch and watch law and order or SVU.  My energy is not the same as it once was.  It could be the meds and lack of sleep I get during the night but I manage through the day.  But honestly by Friday I am done.  I usually want to be in bed by 8, falling asleep because I can’t physically keep my eyes open any longer.

Other than these two major differences for the most part, I feel the same.  Hopefully my work is the same.  But it’s hard for me to judge myself.

I know this song seems a bit morbid.  I don’t know why but the farther away from the possibility of death, the more I seem to think about it.  It’s actually quite strange.  I try not to think about why but rather embrace these feelings.  I believe as a culture we have a bad relationship with life and death.  I mean it’s nothing to be scared of.  it happens, we all have our time.

Anyways on a more positive and uplifting note.  1 year and 9 months left of maintenance Chemo.  Ugh, how this will fly by looking back, but just seems so long looking forward.  At least there is light at the end of this tunnel.  On a positive note, I don’t have to make up any of the missed treatments in this phase due to levels being too low, so that is amazing.

Where was this helpful advise when I was in the hospital.  Not sure it would have helped, but it wouldn’t have hurt.

What causes a person to shart?

Found out recently that another young person at one of our customers started a very similar journey about the same time I did last year.  Crazy how parallel life can be.  He is being treated for leukemia, not sure which one, didn’t have the details but is at a different hospital.  Life is a crazy journey, many people never really understand.

I told my husband the other day, mostly to his shock, that if I relapsed and received a bone marrow transplant and relapsed again and there were no other options that I would want to be a part of an experimental treatment.  That way if I did die, it wouldn’t be for nothing.  That hopefully they would be one step closer to helping others.  I know it sounds strange to read and trust me its stranger to even think about.  That’s what I would want.

I believe everyone should have a death plan or as I like to call it an exit strategy.  Trust me, if you don’t plan ahead for the inevitable, how will people know what to do when you can’t make these decisions for yourself any longer?   We all die.  It’s just a matter of when and how.

Apparently this is what I do now.  It has become my thing.  I sit, as my eyes well up with tears from reading yet another “cancer” article.  I can’t help it.  I can’t not read them.  It’s my cat nip.  Some I agree with and some I can’t stand.  Either way, I end up on the verge of breaking down crying.  I don’t really know why I do it to myself.  I should just stop and focus on what I need to do.  To get myself better mentally and physically.

But I can’t help but gobble up every cancer related article or story that comes my way.  Is this normal?  I am not entirely sure.  I don’t really care either.

Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan/Chase was diagnosed with throat cancer last year.  I feel the same way he feels about being diagnosed.  Obviously I don’t feel the same toward working at JPMorgan.  But I think you understand the jist.  Below are his thoughts:

Excerpt taken from March 17th’s Vanity Fair Article:

“MEMENTO MORI
Dimon’s world was turned upside down last June as he was embarking on a three-week trip to Asia and noticed a swollen gland on the right side of his face, under his jawbone. He couldn’t see it, but he felt it there when he was shaving. “Just a little bump,” he recalls. He went on the trip anyway, figuring it would go away. “It felt normal to me,” he says. When he got back home he went to see his doctor. “To him it felt a little hard,” Dimon continues. “To me, it felt like a normal puffy lymph gland. So, between the hardness, it being on one side, and my age, he said, ‘You need to get a PET scan right away and be braced for bad news.’ ”

Understandably, he was afraid: “You go for the PET scan, the guy says, ‘Well, most people that come in here for this have cancer.’ ” He had the scan. Then the doctors took a biopsy. “They confirmed it was cancer,” he says.

A day after he was diagnosed, Dimon called Lee Raymond, the former C.E.O. of Exxon Mobil and the lead director on the JPMorgan Chase board. Raymond was supportive, as were his fellow board members. “Don’t worry about the company,” they told him. “Don’t worry about us. Focus on yourself and family.”

Dimon appreciated that because, he says, he knew he was in a battle. He scheduled his radiation treatments for seven o’clock in the morning, when few other patients were there. They fitted a mask to his face and bolted him down to the table to make sure he would not move, and then with laserlike precision the machines administered the treatment. He also had six full days of chemotherapy. He lost 35 pounds. His body was burning some 4,000 calories a day because of the treatment. “It was hard to eat,” he says. “Your throat hurts. You have no appetite. Everything tastes just absolutely terrible. So you literally just search for the foods that you can get down.” Into this group fell oatmeal, scrambled eggs, and milk shakes.

He could not help but think of his own mortality. “You wonder: how could it possibly be me?,” he says. “Well, of course it could happen to you. You have it. Then, of course, you wake up every morning and you hope it’s a bad dream. Then you wake up. I have cancer. I have to go to treatment again. Then I have to wait three months to find out if it worked. Even then you’re bracing for ‘Well, we have a problem. It spread.’ You think, I may die. What are you going to miss?”

In early December, Dimon got the good news that he is cancer-free. His doctors won’t declare him completely cured until three years have passed and there is no evidence of the disease. He has regained some of the weight he lost but still looks thinner than before. He occasionally gets tired and takes quick naps, but he has begun exercising again. “Not quite like I used to,” he says. “I don’t have my full appetite and taste back yet, but I feel good. It’s nice to be healthy and back at work.”

He is not yet sure how the bout with cancer has changed him. He believes the way he can still make the most difference for the world is at JPMorgan. “I really mean that,” he says. He talks about jobs that can be created through providing capital to companies. He talks about how the firm has hired 8,000 military veterans and is investing in Detroit. He feels great about these things. “So that’s what I can do,” he says. “That’s my contribution—running a sound, healthy company that serves millions of customers well and employs hundreds of thousands of people. What else am I going to do? I’m not an artist. I’m not a writer. I’m not a musician. I’d love to be a tennis player or musician. I’m not.”

Maybe when he retires he will consider philanthropy. But, with his health much improved, he makes it clear that he has no plans to leave his company anytime soon. “I think our company has done well in very challenging times,” he says. “I love my job and this company, so if it were up to me it would be about five years or so, but that’s up to the company’s board to decide.””