I think it's safe to say that I'm officially settling into the burbz. My parents recently moved from the house I grew up in in Eden Prairie to a townhouse in Eagan, and I must admit that things are not half bad. I've been biking, playing with the pup, eating balanced meals (aka not takeout, my NYC staple), and reading. I'd like to say that I've been digging into "the classics" -- this is what I told myself I would do with all this spare time -- but in reality I'm reading Tina Fey's Bossypants and a lot of P.J. Wodehouse. It could be worse -- at least I haven't descended into tabloid madness and begun devouring US Weekly. Who am I kidding; that will probably start next week.
Alright, enough small talk. Yesterday, I had a series of appointments to check to make sure my body would be able to handle the ABVD. Some context: chemotherapy attacks your body's newest cells -- both the healthy and malignant ones. Pretty much all of the cancer cells are new cells, so this is why it is so effective in ridding the body of disease -- though this is also why people lose their hair and their body becomes weaker and more vulnerable to infections. Anyway, the heart and the lungs are some of the oldest organs around, so these are generally the last things to be harmed by chemotherapy. However, the ABVD cocktail can harm both the heart and lungs in certain people, including the elderly and those whose bodies are already weakened before starting treatment (such as those with HIV, etc), so doctors always order a series of tests to make sure that both organs are strong enough to withstand the chemo.
The first test I had the pleasure of taking was the pulmonary lung test, which measures the strength and durability of your lungs. I'm in pretty good shape and in general don't get winded easily (unless, of course, I'm power-walking up the ginormous escalator from the 4/5 train at 59th Street. No matter how many times I climbed those steps I would still be out of breath by the time I reached the top), so I figured I'd ace this bad boy.
Wrong!
I don't know if I was just not doing it right, or if I do have borderline weak lungs, but this test SUCKED. It didn't help that the doctor was kind of a -- how to put this nicely -- "character", who talked to me like he was a drill sergeant, and I was his unwilling pupil. The test started by me clamping my nostrils to force me to breathe out of my mouth (eww, mouth-breathers) through this sort of snorkel like device that was connected to the computer. "Normal breathing," said the doctor. Easy, peasey. Then: "Take a deep breath and then blow out as hard as you can!"
This is where the trouble started.
If you inhale, and then exhale as hard as you can, it's hard to keep exhaling for more than a few seconds. Try it. You pretty much get all of the air out in the first 5 seconds or so. Well, this test forced you to squeeze out every last molecule of carbon dioxide possible without passing out. Needless to say, this test did not go well, and the doctor morphed into his drill sergeant alter ego. "You're not giving me 100%. I know you can do better! KEEP TRYING!" After a few more apparently unsuccessful attempts, he started to really get fired up. "Man, I've seen 80 year old women with OXYGEN tanks do better than you! STEP! IT! UP!"
Apparently 80 year old women with oxygen tanks have better lungs than me, so after about ten more attempts he finally he gave up and we moved to the next part of the test, which included more weird breathing "exercises", as well as a stint in a weird tube place where my oxygen was intermittently cut off and I had to just puff my cheeks. The whole process seemed pretty bizarre to me, but hey, that's science.
At the end of the tests, I asked him how I did. "Oh, you passed," he said calmly. In fact, my discharge sheet even noted that "the patient was cooperative and put in the proper effort." I am curious to see the kind of high praise he would have written for that 80 year old woman with the oxygen tank.
The next test was the cardiac echo (or echocardiography), which was much less eventful. I got to lay in the dark for 20 minutes and the cardiologist used an ultrasound to get various images of my heart. Not bad at all. At the end of the test I was told that, even with chemo poisoning, the ole ticker would be just fine.
That wrapped up all of the necessary pre-tests before the real fun begins. I have one more week of freedom before my first chemo appointment on September 4th, and I am planning on living it up.
As always, thanks for all your support and well wishes! :)
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