It was good while it lasted

I haven't posted in a while. No excuse. But I would like to update everyone even though I should be going to bed:

I've been to the doc twice since the last post. Heck maybe three times. Good news. I had no cancerous activity in me at the time. But the drug and my history keeps everyone with extremely guarded optimism. This was a while back. Things have changed.

My neuropathy is bad now. It hurts to type. I can't button my shirt really well. I can't write my name really well but I never did in the first place. Typing is bad, besides being painful. Fingers won't do much. I have a hard time going up and down stairs. My body aches constantly like having the flu. I can't sleep now at all. I'm getting used to my sleeping pills and the pain pills so they work less. I'm in either sharp pain of neuropathy or aches at all times of the day and night now. I'm trying to take some vitamins to help with the fingers.

I can't tell my doctor any of this because he'll take me off the drug and I need the drug to survive. His reason is sound: the drug can debilitate me, meaning I could lose function of my hands, arms and legs. But I have to gamble that it won't. I need the drug and be alive more than I need to walk. And really, the biggest problem here is I have to be judicious with the drugs I ask for since they can catch on and give me tests that I might not pass.

There is a great Peter Gabriel song on his second or third album (he never named them; he's an artist). it was about this burglar who liked sneaking in people's houses. The drums on that was excellent. I think he used Phil Collins so you know it's that hard, pounding. In this specific song it managed to be creepy and pounding. It gave you the feeling that Peter was slowly stepping and stepping into the house.

Now, I hear Phil Collins' drums in my body. The cancer that has already snuck into my body and was in hiding for awhile, is getting bored and looking for some elbow room, stretch his nuclei. The right side of my neck is hurting every so often. The muscles around my neck start throbbing for a couple of minutes. Then it goes away. Only to come back and throb for a while. From experience, I know that only two things will happen: either the node will start to appear or the throbbing will stop, never to be heard from again. If the node pops out, it's cancer and it's game on again. If it goes away in the next couple of days, it was a cancerous node but the drugs beat it back so silly that it won't get up to fight again.

This is a time I knew would always come but you're just never prepared. Before I had the reserve of SGN. But I used that up. Now I got no reserve. It's the slow march to the sea. For months, I was just hoping to just get the summer. In May, the treatment ends and Dr. O was going to give me a break for a few months as long as I didn't get sick. It would have been unbelievable. My first single day without drugs for four and a half years. That's more than a thousand mornings waking up to another reality. I just wanted the summer. But those drums. I'll give you an update with this as soon as it breaks one way or the other.