Onto the battlefield young man!

Well it's day two after the dose of death and I've been having a little nausea last night and this morning. Ahhhhhh the sleeping let me tell you. I was only able to sleep six hours the night after the treatment. I woke up at 7am wired as hell and just had to get up. I had all this crazy energy in the morning that I actually handled some tax, disability, insurance phone calls and forms. Very unlike me on my best of days, especially before noon. Went out and about yesterday riding around in my van feeling like I was on such a different level than the rest of the world. Floating through my day with absolutely no intent, direction, purpose or expectation was something that I've not felt in a really really long time. Got home and passed the hell out instantly around 4 o clock or something. The craziest thing I've felt up to this point is the instantaneous depth of sleep I dive into within seconds of laying my head down. I cannot recount one single thought after laying down yesterday for my nap or going to bed the last to nights. It's like as if my head gets level with my heart it just shuts off like a light. I guess it's a lot like a drunken pass out. The nausea feelings are a bit unnerving when they come about, I seriously think this thing will be so heavy on my brain and spirit if I cannot control the nausea. So far the medications are doing there job pretty well but it's some freaky feeling shit when your body starts tweaking and you don't know whether to sit up, lay down, drink water, walk around, run into the wall, scream, or just curl into fetal and cry.
I'm lurking at the house now until it's time to drive my funky ass over to the cancer clinic for a blood test today so they can check my kidney function levels as well as my acidity levels. I have to take these pills that help my bladder break down the highly toxic and acidic bypass as my body rapidly breaks down the cancerous cells. According to my oncologist nearly two thirds of the cancerous buildup in my nodal system as well as my grapefruit sized tumor in my chest will blow up like asteroids and flush through my system in the next three weeks. It's important my bladder and kidney functions are performing top notch in order to pass all this cancerous shrapnel and not cause kidney stones, bladder infections and other rotten things. It's a trip to me that it will take another five months of chemo flushing as well as radiation to get rid of the microscopic 1/3rd of the cancer cells that remain burdening my system. Pesky fuckers. That's me today. Suns out and the weather is warmer. Maybe go to Costco with mom, bed bath and beyond if there's time......

And so the war begins....

Well Mr. Batcheller.... my nurse says" You most certainly will be losing all of the hair on your head and most likely some eyebrow and eyelashes along with the bulk of your pubic hair. There is some chance that you will lose all sperm count and become sterile after your dosages of these drugs. Having kids in the future may not be an option. Your libido is likely also to shrink making you not interested in recreation with your partner, you may also develop mouth and throat ulcers which will make any sexual undertaking or intimate kissing with your partner a high risk for infection. Dark oddly shaped areas of skin are known to show up unexpectedly, your finger and toe nails may thicken and your skin may peel from the wonderful Bleomycin you'll be taking. There is also an increased risk for lung disease and lung malfunction from Bleomycin. The other drugs in your prescription can cause severe numbing to the fingertips and toes to the point of needing assistance in buttoning your shirt, which may or may not be permanent. You will ultimately be faced with bouts of constipation, diahphrea, extreme fatigue, lightheadedness and loss of appetite .Nausea will be the most persistant symptom and most essential in trying to control over the course of your treatment. Not to save the best for last but you will also be at a higher risk for developing leukemia and other different forms of cancer, which may ultimately be caused from the medicine I'm giving to you today." Obviously that wasn't all one paragraph she put together but a summation of what I was enlightened with this morning in our hour long pre chemo user discussion. Sounded like a lot of optimistic really great news to me.

After an hour of being given my nausea medicine it was time to start my first wave of Chemo. I don't think I have ever felt as personally violated in my whole life and have never had such a wandering regret as to if I was making a wrong decision as I did today when she administered four rounds of god awful toxins into my body. The drugs are so toxic the nurses where thick rubber haz mat gloves and eye protection in case of accidental exposure, they use extreme caution administering them through the IV because external skin contact can cause third degree burn like ulcers in a matter of seconds. "You're putting that stuff in my body"? I thought. The more and more I thought about it the more and more the potential risks of dieing trying to beat this the natural way using nutritional science and alternative methods seemed a better idea. After six and a half hours in a lazy boy lounge full of much older humans than I and beeping IV towers I was finally free to go. And off I went feeling as free as a lab at the dog park after a week locked in the yard.

So here I am, feeling defeated and undermined, encouraged and optimistic. I was not initially planning to run a blog about my daily life as a cancer patient but after today I realize that this is going to be the best way for me to let out my thoughts and emotions, because I most certainly don't do well verbally. So from here on out, if you're here reading this thanks for checking in on me.