Bugger!

Well what a difference 3 hours makes in one's life. I literally met with my Haematologist at 8.30am on Tuesday the 20th to be informed that the latest CT scan had come back well and the cancer was still away. At 11.30am I had a seizure and was rushed to ED, followed by a CT scan of the head to find that the cancer has spread to the brain and is approximately 5cm in size. Fortunately my trading partner Marc was with me at the time and was able to get me to hospital rather promptly (poor bugger).

As you can appreciate a tumour in the brain is not good, treatment is difficult through the brain barrier, so I have to say that the odds of full recovery is only about 2-5%. The initial diagnose from the admitting doctors gave me a survival time of 3-6 months. However, they have been a little more positive than this since and we will look at this time frame again after my next CT scan in a couple of weeks. But in essence it is terminal.

I have had one chemo treatment already and another coming up in a week on the 9th of June. Following this I receive another CT that will show if I am responding to the chemo (or not). If responding then it is full on chemo (probably with steam cell transplants) and this should extend my time frame - no idea how long, it is just going to be a wait and see kind of thing.

So the first week I was fairly shattered emotionally and was suffering a very sore neck and was rather fuzzy brain, but feel much better now and the brain functions reasonably well (well no major complaints). So I'm back at work for this week and will drag my laptop into the hospital for the week of the 9th.

Sorry for the rather frank diagnose, but that's life and hopefully that chemo can get through to the tumour and I can push out a few more years - we shall see.

PS: that isn't my head scan - still haven't seen it. It sits deep in the left side of the brain and will probably cause right side motor skills problems, but shouldn't effect my personality too much :o). Well that's the theory so far.

Infidel & proud

There were parts of 2007 that I enjoyed immensely, the major one being the worldwide discussion about religion, god and the fanciful nature of both, thanks to the likes of Christopher Hitchens with God is not Great and Richard Dawkins with The God Delusion (I struggled with Dawkins’ book - but still, at least he was out there talking the talk).

Due to my illness last year, the thought of death was understandably at the forefront of my mind, as I am sure it was for everyone I knew - some would talk about it, others would not. I thank those that did talk - it couldn't have been an easy discussion for them at the time, although it was a great relief for me to articulate my thoughts and plans.

There is a saying that goes "there are no atheists in foxholes" implying that atheists deep down believe in god when put under life threatening conditions. Having been in that metaphorical foxhole I can with 100% certainty say there most definitely are atheists in foxholes - and I’m one of them. Although I did not want to die so young, I was not afraid of dying. But my lack of fear is not why I’m an atheist, even if I was terrified at the prospect of dying, I’d still be atheist. I'm an atheist because that is the only rational possibility.

I actually think I could turn the foxhole scenario around and say that on a sunny day at the beach all believers are atheists. The only reason I can fathom that they cling to their belief, is fear: fear of dying, or fear that life does not have that certain meaning, or fear that without religious structure life would be too chaotic, or fear that their family and friends would shun them should they not follow like sheep.

What kind of horrible mental gymnastics must this take - to dispel all the facts around you and cling to the impossible, just because you are afraid - sounds like a quick path to mental illness.

Many New Zealanders at this point would say they are not religious and in the face of such atrocities perpetrated by catholic priests – and really just the sheer stupidity of the bible – many New Zealanders have turned away from organised religion and god is definitely on the out. One would think that this was fantastic and New Zealanders were now free to turn to rational thought patterns. But alas no, many are turning to psychics, star signs and other such new age crap and yes I do hold the opinion (based on observations of my mystic friends) that these people suffer mentally for these pursuits. It is also unfortunate that women are more likely than men to wallow in mystical and spiritual fantasies.

Then there is a fraction of these mystic types that actually declare that they are atheists. They do not attend a church and do not believe that there is a god, yet they still hold the opinion that there is some kind of super-natural force that or that there is life-after-death and yet they label themselves atheists. Please everyone an atheist is one that “denies the existence of a deity or of divine beings”.

And I’d just like to say to all those that are wondering:
* no, your pleadings with god did not cure me of cancer - the doctor did;
* no, I did not get cancer because of some bad Karma in this or any non-existent previous life;
* no, stress does not cause cancer - if it did I would be dead by now from the stress of listening to believers for the last year;
* no, having a positive attitude does not mean I'm going to survive, and being negative will not mean the cancer will win. The pressure to always be “up” was really just rather annoying and stressful;
* no, I did not suddenly catch religion during my chemo and I'm not suddenly in touch with my spiritual side;
* no, I did not appreciate you trying to convert me over to the dark side - I am enlightened and will stay this way until my dying days.

And on that last point: I’m sure that one of the jobs of hospital security guards is to throw out religious vultures that prey on the scared and venerable in times of stress.

PS: No, taking large quantities of vitamins or aloe vera will not cure me of cancer and there is no, none, zilch evidence that it does. Your new age herbalist/natropath did not cure your uncle, aunt, mother, friend of cancer it was the chemo, radiation or medical treatment provided by their oncologist or hematologist.

Yes, I did have and still do have an almost impeccable diet (better than anyone I know) and a healthy lifestyle, I do not smoke and drink very little. I use beauty products that don't have nasty chemicals in them, never use normal deodorants and eat mainly organic food and yes I still got cancer. There is nothing that I can conceivably have done to prevent this - that fact that I got cancer and you guys didn't is a big mystery to me. There is a possible (and unsubstantiated) linked between pollution and Lymphoma, but since I run a very energy efficient car and can only think of about 3 people that consume less than I do, I think I've done my bit to keep the pollution levels around me down.

Help! Cancer Card Expired!

Now 2007 was not the best of years for me. Cancer came up on me through the end of 2006 and smacked me to the ground by the 19th of March 2007 when I was hospitalised, informed two days later that I had aggressive stage IV Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and chemotherapy had to start pronto.

But every cloud has those proverbial silver linings. The first being, I finally knew what the hell was wrong with me - I wasn't a hypochondriac after all. And second, I suddenly was a signed up member for the all powerful, all conquering cancer club and best of all, they issued the card of all cards, the lord of the cards, the card to rule us all - the Cancer Card!

I was put onto this card whilst reading Cancer Vixen that a friend so kindly brought for me early on in the treatment process. It is a very funny autobiographical cartoon book by Maria Aocella Marchetto, a New York cartoonist who went through breast cancer and documented her experience with great humour and accuracy - I highly recommend it to all cancer sufferers.

Anyway back to the Cancer Card. Its main benefit is that it gives you the ability to pull it out at any time* and wave it around and say "no-can-do I've got the Cancer Card". It enables you to get around doing all sorts of obligations and nuisance of normal life. Things such as boring cooking, doing the boring dishes, boring cleaning, going to any & all boring functions, staying at any boring functions, taking part in any boring conversations. In fact the old Cancer Card gets you out of doing anything boring at all if you don't want to – work included. Fan-bloody-tastic, should have got cancer ages ago!

The mysterious thing about the Cancer Card is that its power increases the sicker you become, so after about your 4th course of chemo its power will probably be at its peak and provides many, many a free-pass. The only thing Cancer Card can't actually do is cure cancer.

But I noticed a disturbing thing the other day - mine had vanished! No I hadn't left it in the car to be stolen by the local yobs. But ever so slowly, as I got better and better, its power had diminished. It's like a muscle, the less you use it, the weaker it becomes, until eventually it withers & dies.

And bloody good riddance too! Good riddance to the cancer, to the Cancer Card and to 2007!

* Cancer Card is only of significant use if you have friends & family around to pick up the slack and help you along - so make sure you don't piss them off too much.

* Cancer Card doesn't work at the hospital - they're on to us. Step on to hospital grounds and you walk through a barrier that suspends the power of the card until you leave again - tricky bastards these medical bods are - but love them we do.