6/2/96
Summer is here, and it is sweltering hot! I went to the mall today with Brittany, and of course I wore a mask, but this time my face sweated like crazy. I had to wipe my face with a Kleenex several times. I do have trouble telling whether it is cold or hot, for I am still getting that hot sweatiness from head to toe. These sweats are different than the night sweats I got when I was Hodgkin's out, they don't accompany a fever. During the night I have been waking up every two hours in a sweat, then I get cold from being wet and can't sleep. I doubt that it is the Etopicide from 3 weeks ago, it feels more like a chemo imposed sort of menopause. It could be, it does sound like hormonal hot flashes. I will put it on my list for the doctor. I see him on Tuesday.

I made it to Brittany's dance recital on Saturday, there were 687 kids in the show. I only stayed for her part, which lasted about 5 minutes, if that. She loves being on stage, and she has a lot of presence! I can now relax, for there are no more mandatory school engagements for her until the fall. If I was not still going through chemo I would take her out of school for the summer. The best I can do is shorten her days by a third. If there is any summer left when I am done with chemo, I will surely take her out for that time.

I figured out why I was having trouble visualizing last week! I was bored. I think I have that novelty gene that the show 20/20 talked about a few weeks ago, for I really like the newness of things. When I first started visualizing, I thought I could make one up and use it for months, but then I found myself having to make up new ones, one after the other. I never have liked to create the same thing twice, things must constantly change, even if it is just the color. I really do not see anything wrong with it, as long as I pay attention to the times when I have to work through the boredom of familiarity. Doing the RBC Flip is a good example of that, for my mind kept drifting to images of a gymnast named Milo landing in slow motion. I watched the shock waves charge up her leg, and I couldn't help but picture her helping me make RBCs. I held onto the image of her for a while, watching RBCs fly into the air from her feet. It was explosive. Then I pictured a red Blort dancing on his toes on a long red carpet in my bone marrow. He did little dance steps that stimulated tons of small RBCs to pour out of the carpet. It was really easy to do!

I have also decided to do a little more with nutrition and herbs. I have a few Peruvian herbs that I will get my doctor's opinion about for using during chemo, plus I just started adding different foods to my diet that are high in iron. I have been eating spinach, steak, liver and kidney beans, and tomorrow I will have some oatmeal, whole wheat bread, black beans and brown rice. My body is soaking it up!

I will now picture my skin looking pink instead of pasty white, and then I will imagine my veins filling up with blood. I can see it bubbling as the level rises. I know I have more RBCs than last week, and I plan to surprise my doctor!

6/8/96
It has been a long week! I went to the doctor on Tuesday, and chemo was put on hold again due to low RBCs. My RBCs were at 8.2, up from 7.4, better than the previous week, but still not very high. My WBCs dropped to 2,100, which was to be expected, since I stopped taking Neupogen. My Platelets were up to 169, which is at the bottom of normal. My theory about menopause turned out to be true, I am going through an early menopause! It could reverse itself after my chemo stops, but I decided a long time ago to let nature takes it's course in such matters. In the meantime, I get hot flashes about every 2 hours, around the clock. So once again, my sleep is just not happening! Oh well, it is an experience.

I am beginning to feel normal, in fact, if I was not so bloodless, I would feel great! I can finally see how my hair will grow back, and that I will one day have all my energy back too. I am looking forward to my next round of chemo, it will make me that much closer to being done. Then I will only have radiation left. I mentioned to my doctor that I don't exactly have the best skin for the sun, and he nodded his head and said "Thank you." I guess he didn't want to point out the whiteness and freckle producing nature of my skin. I have been a sun bunny in the past, especially during my body building years, in fact, I got diagnosed with a melanoma on my 30th birthday. So radiation reminds me of skin cancer, I can't believe that it is good for one's skin. For my radiation treatments, I will be using a lot of aloe vera and vitamin E oil. I will also drink a lot of water and sleep a lot! Of course, who knows how I will react when the time comes. At least I will be well prepared!

6/16/96
I have been out of it for most of the week, and I am not in that great shape today. I really didn't expect to have chemo on Tuesday, I thought my RBC count would be too low. It was 9.3, and since the rest of my counts were normal, we went ahead with my second to last poisoning. Everything was going as planned until 8pm on Wednesday night, when I got chills and a fever of 101.7. My mom took me to the ER at Stanford, where I had a blood test that took 5 hours. Of course my fever disappeared the second I arrived at the hospital, but I did have itchy skin and a minor rash. The entire incident reminded me of a mini version of the time I had that terrible allergic reaction to Procarbizine. My theory was proved somewhat when my blood test showed my WBCs at 18,000. I was amazed at the WBC count, because it had been 4,000 at 10am that morning. One full shot of Neupogen did that! My very tired mom and I went home at 4am.

I saw my doctor yesterday, and we decided that I had a minor allergic reaction to Bleomycin (the B in ABVD), another one of the chemo drugs that the nurses apologize for just before they inject it. Bleomycin is red and it smells, in fact, I can smell it on me for days.

I went to the hospital again yesterday, Saturday, for I had more chills and a fever. This time, I went to another unit in the hospital, a faster one, and got my blood drawn and back in three hours. The doctor who examined me decided it must be a virus, which does not surprise me, for we had a lot of people in the house this last week. I still have chills and a low grade fever, and who knows where the chemo begins and the virus ends. I just know that my head needs to be on the same plane as my body. Flat!

Before I crawl into my recovery spot, I have to celebrate my official chemo count down. I only have 1 1/2 ABVD's left, that is three more rounds. I will be free again! No more planning which weeks I will feel like crap!

6/23/96
I am feeling fairly human right now. I had a long unenergetic week, and I really couldn't motivate myself to work on either of my sites. That is not normal for me, I usually have to force myself to get off my computer. This happened to me before, on my last round of ABVD, I took a 2 week vacation from my Mac, and just did nothing. When I returned to my Mac, I was able to dive right into it, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

I went to the doctor on Tuesday, and all my counts were high! I have tons of blood! In fact, now when I get a hot flash, I get really red all over too. My latest sport is too rush to the mirror, so I can see my skin turn red. It is as close as I will ever get to a tan. I avoid the sun like it is a big germ! Nothing but bad things come out of direct sunlight. One day, people are going to have to wear protective body suits, or they will risk breaking out in a rash of melanomas. Yuck!

I get chemo tomorrow, it will be another dose of ABVD. Between it and MOPP or MOPE, ABVD is the major hair ripper. I expect my hair to start falling out again this week end. Sounds like a party to me. I think I will be shaving my head at least one more time. But the best news is, after tomorrow's chemo, I will only have one more cycle left! Now that's a party!

6/25/96
I had chemo today. I feel OK right now, so decided to jot down recent highlights. I taught Brittany her first card game, War, because it is the easiest to play. She understood it right away, and even learned to cheat in a lot of different ways. My mom came down again, and took care of everything, and she even let Brittany wear her out playing cards.

I finally added a "Photo Gallery" (Photos may take some time loading) to my chemosite, and next week I will put it on my Blortsite. I plan to shoot a lot of gallery pictures, I have a million ideas that I never had a chance to carry out. I definitely want to take a photo of my new Demi Moore hair do. Demi just shaved her head, and now her and I have the same hairdo. I am now in style! I dare anyone else to be so bold!

6/30/96
I was not too happy on Friday after my doctors appointment! All my counts were high, but I learned a few facts about my marrow and chemo future that depressed me. In 3 1/2 weeks, I will have another round of ABVD, then I will wait 6 weeks to be extensively restaged. I asked my doctor what he expected to find, and he said "residual disease." That means more chemo! I had to ask. I reminded my doctor that my last restaging showed disease only in my chest, and that my marrow was free of disease. He then said, "but your marrow was not normal, there was a lot of scar tissue." Just great! So I asked him if it was possible that he could find no disease or scar tissue, and he said "yes." So my job is to revitalize every tissue in my body.

I snapped out of my depression a few hours later, and decided to think about all I could do in my chemo free 3 1/2 weeks and those 6 weeks prior to my restaging. Why that is 9 1/2 weeks, so why not grow some hair? On top of that, my hair has not fallen out from these last two ABVD's, so I already have a good head start. One of the main reasons I want hair is to get that chill off my head, but the most exciting thing about growing new hair is that I can pick any hair style I want. I have decided on a stylish long type of bob with a few wispy bangs, so I can walk around and fling my hair everywhere!

Another revelation I have had has to do with food. I was watching Larry King the other night, and the subject was cancer. Larry had a panel of cancer survivors and a few doctors who all said that nutrition played an important role in cancer. It did not surprise me that a high fat diet could lead to cancer, especially a diet high in animal fat. I have always been a big steak eater, but after the show I am disgusted by it. I will go back to my body building roots, and eat a healthy natural low fat diet. It makes sense that fat would be bad, I can picture grease covered cells getting mad and mutating.

I keep saying that I am going to start an exercise routine, but something always gets in the way, like no blood. Today, I am saying it again, and I mean it. I used to be such an exercise freak, so it is my thought that my body expects it. I slacked off before I got sick, and who knows if that contributed to my getting HD. It does not take long for me to feel good after a little exercise, and it is time for me to feel good! So there!