Birthdays are a pain in the ass – literally!

Well I’m older now, but not wiser that’s for sure. I started the first day of my 28th year with an enema in the morning and then iced that cake of an idea with a rectal exam in the afternoon. “happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me…” Actually maybe that was smart; the year can only get better from here!

Chemotherapy is very hard on the digestive system which in turn messes with your bowels. I have read about (and experienced) a constant swing back and forth between constipation and diarrhea in patients getting treatment. It all becomes very hard on the backdoor and can lead to a whole mess of other problems like fissures and hemorrhoids. I honestly spend more time dealing with this shit (pun intended!) than the actual cancer; thus the ass exam.

Oh well, putting that “behind me” I have a fun filled week of other doctor appointments to address all of the other side effects that have occurred from the cancer or treatment. Next the eye doctor – I’m going blind and can’t do anything without what used to be my reading only glasses. This could either be nerve damage from the lymphoma or a temporary side effect of the chemo. (I’m also losing memory and going deaf but I’m confident these are temporary and take far too much joy in driving people nutz to address the issue right now.)

Then into see the cardiologist about my fluttery ticker. Again this could be from the chemo, but it’s more likely something to do with the mass that was/is in my chest pushing on my heart for so long. I hope it’s just that as the mass shrinks the pressure is receding causing irregular activity, but I’m worried that there’s a thin spot on the wall of my heart from where the mass was because I have read about it happening with other lymphoma patients; and all my symptoms sound the same. My hematologist just “loves it” when I Google.

But all this gets me thinking about how even when it’s over, it’s not really over. After chemo I may have radiation (or more chemo) and then endless check ups and scans. Overall I am confident that I will eventually be Hodgkin’s free. But what if I’m left with a heart problem, damaged eye sight, a broken ass! What if my eyebrows never grow back, I’m so fucking sick of painting my eyebrows on like a geisha girl everyday. What if the potential radiation to my chest area causes a breast cancer 10 years down the road, as we now know radiation can do? I don’t think I can do this again, and certainly not breast cancer. What if I have children by then, god what if I can’t have children because of this?

It’s not really going to be over. Life AC (after cancer) will be a life of some certain cancer problems and the uncertainty of potential cancer problems. No wonder I feel sick when people talk about this being over soon and getting back to my old life. I don’t know about you, but none of this was in my old life; certainly not the first 27 years.