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As I was cooking dinner, I looked at the ingredients label of a can of Lucks Fried Apples. At the bottom, it said “may contain peanuts”. I’m just wracking my brain trying to figure out how fried apples could possibly contain peanuts…
Platinum in my veins
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Strangely enough, the primary cancer-killing drug I’m taking is a form of platinum… I’d much rather have it on a record hanging on my wall, but I’m just glad it works, however odd. The good news is that after my first cycle of chemo, my AFP tumor marker level was down from 168 to 20 (with “normal” being below 6). So the chemo is definitely working… I’m just about done with my second cycle. The third starts on August 11th, with my last treatment on Labor Day week. I won’t be officially declared cancer-free for at least two years – monthly blood tests and CT scans will be necessary to make sure I don’t have any recurrence – but compared to what I’ve been going through this summer, those will be a breeze.Unfortunately, that means I’ll have to start shaving again and dealing with washing and combing my hair. I used to have dreams where I lost all my hair. Now I have dreams that I actually do have hair – go figure 🙂
On a completely unrelated note, there’s a marching band passing by my house right now…
Cheetos, S’mores, and Spaghetti
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Going through chemo is kinda like being pregnant (I assume) – your body completely revolts against you, you put on weight, nausea is a constant companion, and you have some really weird food cravings.
Sunday I went to the grocery for the first time in a while – picked up a number of foods I either haven’t had in a long time, or decided to try for the first time. First up is a couple of new cereals – “Cinnamon Krunchers” (note the hip and edgy spelling) – not too bad, but it’s basically a slightly sweeter version of Corn Chex. The other cereal was “Smorz” (again, the hip and edgy spelling). Just terrible. It doesn’t taste vaguely like s’mores or any of the individual smore components. Even the miniature marshmallows… you’d think with all the cereals over the years that featured marshmallows, they could at least get those right. But no. Lucky Charms – now *there’s* a cereal that does it right.
Anyway, I also picked up a couple of cans of Chef Boy-Ar-Dee Spaghetti and Meatballs. Why, I don’t know. I didn’t like spaghetti out of a can as a child, and I still don’t. It looks really good on the can, but once I emptied the contents into a bowl and nuked it, it looked like the same orange slop I ate 15 years ago.
Finally, we get to the good stuff… a big ol’ bag of Cheetos Puffs. Not the shriveled crunchy kind that threaten to chip your tooth enamel with every bite, but the big orange poofs that leave processed cheese dust all over everything. Premium snacking goodness…. I went through that bag much quicker than is healthy for a normal human.
After returning home from shopping, I discovered that I have more cans of peas and niblet corn on my shelves than the grocery store did. They multiply at an astounding rate.
Sometimes “C” isn’t for Cookie
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It’s been nearly two months since my last entry, and most people who read this can probably figure out why. I’ve had stupid little things to post here, but it seemed dumb not to address the big issue going on right now.
Anyway, on May 23rd I had a tumor removed, which turned out to be cancer. So I’ve been going through chemotherapy for the past month, and tomorrow I start my second cycle. Basically I’ll be spending 4-5 hours a day, every day this week, hooked up to an IV. The real fun doesn’t start until Thursday when all food looks good, but tastes terrible. And constant fatigue to boot. That’ll last until Tuesday or so – it’s not horrible, but not something you want to experience on a regular basis. Thankfully my last cycle is in August, then it’s just smaller treatments for another month which aren’t nearly as harsh.
But that’s what’s going on at the moment – I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it in the future.