Memorial Day
On Memorial Day five years ago, I was released from the hospital after being "incarcerated" for ten days in what I then called Hotel Hell. I didn't call it that because anyone treated me badly. I called it that because I didn't want to be there. Because life was going on outside the walls without me. And because I was scared.
This ten day incarceration followed only two days of freedom. I'd been admitted earlier because chemo had knocked out my neutrophils and caused a serious infection. My longer stay commenced with a fever and severe pain in my midsection. Complications everyone hopes to avoid went from bad to worse. The pain turned out to be an infarct, the death of part of my spleen, and I feared that my body had decided I deserved a slow death and would kill me one part at a time.
Pneumonia then set in and oxygen was added to my daily routine. The tubes in my nose were reminders that I could no longer accomplish the feat of breathing on my own. My fear increased.
The CVP which I'd been taking wasn't working and the doctor turned to R-CHOP for help. Within 24 hours, CHOP had slaughtered cells faster than my kidneys could get rid of the waste. Renal failure followed.
See why I called it Hotel Hell?
When I left the hospital that Memorial Day, I was weak as a kitten and emotionally drained. Following is part of the last paragraph from the chapter in my book called, appropriately, "Hotel Hell:"
"I'd endured ten days of boredom, punctuated by fear and self-pity. I'd wondered if I would ever reclaim my ordinary life. Did I dare to expect CHOP to succeed? And a future? I wasn't even sure I'd be around to wear the summer sandals I'd bought on sale the previous winter. My confidence in everything had fallen to zero. I knew I was lucky to leave the hospital in one piece. I'd had no surgery or any other far worse procedure. My body was intact, but the rest of me felt like I had been mortally wounded."
I share this with all of you to let you know that I understand the overwhelming fear and frustration that accompanies disease and chemo-related complications. While I pray that none of you have to endure them, I also hope that - if you do - you will hold on to the thought that complications are usually temporary and that you have every reason to believe that you will get through them.
Not everyone experiences the chemo-related complications that I did, but they are a real possiblity. I could have avoided them if RIT had been available when CVP stopped working. But that was 2002 and both drugs were under FDA review and thus unavailable. R-CHOP, which I started in May, did nothing more than deprive me of my hair and cause additional complications. The good news is that it bought me time. By August, when my disease came roaring back after the 5th treatment, RIT had just become available. For me, it was available in the nick of time.
After months of failed treatments and complications, I was amazed by how easy and fast RIT was to take. There were no side effects, no complications - and it worked!
Today, no one needs to endure successive chemotherapy treatments as I did. RIT is FDA approved as a second line treatment and should be offered as an option to relapsing patients who could potentially benefit from it.
Hope all of you are enjoying this long Memorial Day weekend. I'm saying a prayer for all who have and are serving our country.
Betsy