Today was my last day of radiation treatment and my last oral chemo treatment for this round is tonight. This is the completion of round 3 in my treatment. I am surprised by how difficult this round was. Partially because it was not something that I could just overcome with will power. This is not unexpected as my weight has dropped significantly from what the initial dosage was. Since the beginning of this round of treatment I have dropped 20 lbs. The oral chemo is done according to weight and a 10% drop is significant. On the bright side however is that this time I know that the oral chemo is working because it impacted me significantly as opposed to breezing through it. I think that the hardest challenge though with this part was the combination of radiation that impacted my eating schedule. Without that additional challenge I think I can overcome another round of chemotherapy.
One thing that I realized when I took time off last week was without a sense of purpose or without something external to focus on, your mind thinks about not feeling well. I was in no condition to work last week and took sick time while doing the bare minimum things that needed to be accomplished. People tell me all the time to focus on what is important. Work is not important at the moment; it is my health that I should focus on. My whole life I was not really one to sit idly by and not work. Throughout this you realize what is important and what is not. Work itself was not important to me, but being there and supporting my team was. Being available to spend time with my friends and family is important. The most important thing to me is how am I contributing in a positive way to the lives of other people, what is the impact that I have on them. I truly believe that my work colleagues are like family and I did my best in my own way to provide support where I could, and when I could not, they understood and managed on their own. There was no pressure in this arrangement. On the days that I did not work I did not feel well, and when I did, I managed to focus. I had a small task that I wanted to complete and made sure I did it. The work was within my capabilities but it gave me a sense of purpose and drive. This made me think of work, where my task is to help people to improve and most of the time they struggle because things are not going well, but you need to find the small wins or the small things that you can do to get through the day. You do not need to have something big, but what is the small thing you can do to make your situation better. The habit then builds where you look at small positive gains and your focus is no longer on the bad situations. Over the weekend I was not feeling all that great, but we had some plans to make dinner. I had someone over for dinner and it gave me a sense of purpose as I made the whole meal from scratch primarily with ingredients sourced from the garden. It gave me some focus. I would rate this experience 10/10 for difficulty!
I have had my blood pressure decreasing steadily over the last week and Melanie was rather worried. After talking to the doctor, he was not too concerned at the moment as he suspects it will get better when the treatment is done. With the lowered blood pressure, I need to get up slowly and I operate more slowly. Once upon a time on the weekends I would make Melanie a latte to start the mornings. She has been an immense help the last couple of weeks and my goal for this weekend is to make my wife a latte.
In 4 to 5 weeks, I may start round 4 of chemotherapy. We just do not know whether the cancer is present or not so we are going to hit it with everything that we have once I have recovered strength.
Quoc Hao