I'd Rather be in Greece than have Chemotherapy

Dear Reader,

My husband thinks I should mention to you all that my love for travel exceeds even any concern for my health. I don't know if I'd put it exactly like that but I guess in some ways he's right. It didn't even cross my mind at the time but I was diagnosed with breast cancer three years ago in January. Even though this is really scary, my first thought was "what about our trip to Greece in May?". It was to be our first visit to Greece and I was very excited about it so the news in that respect was devastating. All I could think about was to get past this thing so I could make my trip.

We had booked a 7 day Greece/Turkey cruise out of Piraeus, Greece, the port city for Athens. John had been worried about taking too much time from work at that time so rather than our usual three week vacation, we simply added an additional 8 days to tour around the Peleponese in Greece prior to the cruise. Still, it was a lot of hard work planning and trying to find decently priced accomodations in Athens and a rental car in Corinthos and how to tour Istanbul and Ephesus, Turkey and the whole thing.

I had already put a great deal of work into the vacation when I got the bad news. The tourism websites for Greece and Turkey aren't very good. They leave out very important details and information that a tourist needs to know before hand and this made the planning even more difficult than usual. And then there's the language barrier. I've always been able to get by with my French, Italian and Spanish. In Germany and the Netherlands a lot of people speak English so it's usually not a real issue but in Greece, what an unsual language! And Turkish, well it was all Greek to me.

The doctors said they would have to operate to remove tumor, which I expected, and also some lymph nodes to check to see if the cancer had spread. All I could do was to press them to hurry up and set a date for surgery so I could start treatment. By the end of February I managed to get my first operation out of the way but had some bad news. I had cancer in one of my lymph nodes which meant my cancer went up from stage I to stage II. It's kind of like getting a bad grade. In situ is like getting an A. Stage I is a B but when you get beyond Stage I, Stages II, III and IV, you're in serious trouble and will most likely die. That's what they don't want to say to you but you read it in their eyes and by their recommendations.

Because of the cancer found in my lymph nodes, my surgeon said he would have to operate again and remove more lymph nodes and more tissue just to be safe. He was very positive that he would not find any more cancer and convinced me it was just a precaution requested by the lab. I was fine with that and it was reassuring at the same time. So once again I had to push to get the second surgery moved up without a three week delay.

After the second surgery which took place at the end of February, I was ready to talk treatment with my new oncologist. She's not a very personable doctor, very cold and clinical and showed me charts and graphs about my prospects. She said without chemotherapy my chances of survival were about 30% but with my chances rose to about 70%. Then she recommended radiation therapy to follow.

I didn't want to go through chemotherapy for obvious reasons, the illness, the pain and the hair loss but she made it clear that there wasn't really a choice and who would sacrifice life for a great head of hair? It's hard to say but having had a great head of hair, it is what you are. My fabulous rich thick curly hair which had never been dyed or permed, was very special to me. I did not want to lose it. My doctor had no sympathy whatsoever so I went along with the program and agreed to the 16 weeks of chemotherapy, though I lived in dread of this treatment.

Then after all of that convincing, the chemo kept being delayed. I was anxious to start it right away to get it over with but this required phone call after phone call begging to get an appointment to start my torture with no results. Finally my oncologist said she must have an echocardiogram which is an invasive test where a tube is inserted into the arteries and radioactive dye is added. This is supposed to determine how strong my heart is. I refused to have the test. It was too invasive. This is the right of the patient. I asked my oncologist what she would do if I refused, refuse to give me the chemotherapy treatments that I needed? She then advised she would settle for a electrocardiogram which is similar to a sonogram, sort of. I agreed to this test and had to drive all the way to Folsom, Ca. for the test. It went fine and my heart is plenty strong. So there were no further obsticals to starting chemotherapy. Then it was a matter of my calling every day and pushing for an appointment. This was not something I wanted to do but I could see no way around it so might as well get it started as soon as possible so it can end.

The treatment can be long depending upon the medication or poison they give you. I was on two poisons at once for the first four weeks and then only one poison for the last four weeks. My first series of poisons for the first four weeks took approximately 2 1/2 hours total. But right before each treatment, they would have to draw my blood to test my white blood cell count to see if it was high enough to fight germs.If not, they wouldn't give me the chemotherapy.My first treatment went well and I was lucky to have my sister with me to keep me company and talk about all kinds of things. She also would bring me drinks and snacks that people brought in. The first drip they gave me wasn't too bad. It took awhile to finish but was fairly mild. But then they'd come with the Andriamiacide which is a very serious poison and shoot a giant syrnge into my IV all at once. I could feel it burn in my veins as it spread throughout my body. It was pink in color and also makes you pee pink.

I was violently ill after the first treatment until my doctor called in a prescripton for Emends. This pill really works. There are only three pills you take; one the day before chemo, one the day of chemo and one the day after chemo, and I never got sick again! It's great stuff though very expensive. It's definitely worth it. There were lots of side effects from these drugs that I had no control over but at least the nausea was gone. I still couldn't taste any flavor at all from food. The skin inside my mouth all peeled away. Nothing sounded good to eat except a chocolate milkshake and saltine crackers. Could a person feeling this way fly off to Greece for almost 3 weeks? Why not? Just reading about Greek food made me hungry and seemed like a cure to me.

John was going to his annual conference in April and that year it was in New Orleans. We love New Orleans and even though we go every year, who could miss out on an entire week in a luxury hotel? So I had already bought my ticket to accompany him. I told my doctor  I was going to New Orleans after only 2 weeks of chemo and she just stared at me like I was crazy. She had already done a good enough job of making me feel crazy by that point that I didn't care one way or the other. I was going. And I did. I was tired and didn't feel much like doing a lot of excercise but I really enjoyed the room with a great view and reading by the window and sitting by the rooftop pool. These are things I rarely get to do when traveling. There's so much to see. I also went shopping for warmer clothes because it was a bit colder than usual but it was a laid back week and very pleasant.

When I told my oncologist about my Greek trip she would not give me the go ahead. All she would say was "This is cancer we are dealing with, you know." I knew that. She also warned me that my white cell blood count is low from the chemo which makes me supseptible to germs and diseases. The Neulasta shot received the day after chemo was supposed to boost my white cell count but was it enough? I finally asked her what would happen if I were gone for three weeks, missing one session. She hesitated to say and just said that treatments used to be every three weeks before they discovered the neulasta shot which enables the white blood cell count to return to normal faster allowing chemotherapy treatments every other week rather than every three weeks. This shot, by the way, is no doubt the most painful shot I've ever had in the arm. It takes a good ten minutes to administer and the liquid burns going in and through the veins the entire time. This certainly must have a worthwhile purpose.

So as I understood it, in the past I would have treated every three weeks rather than every other week until the invention of the neulasta shot. This gave me the security that I needed to know that it would be safe to be away for three weeks.What did I care if it took an extra week to finish? I would not allow this treatment to destroy my life and my plans so I told her I was going to Greece and would pick up where I left off. I was very determined to go to Greece and took precautions against diseases. I wore a mask on the flight and used wet wipes to wipe down the arm rests, seats, tray tables and call buttons on the aircrafts we flew. After that I wore gloves all the way to Europe. They were not going to say "I told you so".

I went to Greece without her blessing prepared with my wet wipes and gloves and masks and listerine and actually had a pleasant flight. There was no nausea all day and no other symptoms of chemotherapy. We were awake all night to get to London and had two more planes to catch in order to reach Athens but we missed our Swissair flight to Zurich which connected to Athens due to ground control at Heathrow Airport so we had a few hours wait and flew directly to Athens on British Airways. It was a rather rough start but it didn't bother me at all. This was all pretty normal stuff and not being sick made it actually fun.

We went on to have a terrific time in Greece and saw many ancient sights, beautiful islands, the great city of Istanbul and met a lot of interesting people. I would not have missed that vacation for anything in the world. It was a pure escape and very enjoyable. I didn't feel sick at all. John didn't fall down or anything but we did get terribly lost in the mountains of the Peleponnese and had a long and scary hairpin drive through very high mountains with goats leaping onto the road in front of us and a sheer cliff to one side. If we hadn't been so scared, I would have gotten some nice pictures.

By this time I had lost all of my hair and had to wear a wig for the duration of the trip,which was hot. In Turkey I dressed native in a long black skirt with a black scarf around my head and was able to get into the Mosques without question so I did not feel disabled in any way. I ate whatever I wanted and drank whatever I wanted and felt completely normal.

In July we flew to Ontario, California to visit my cousin's family as we do every summer. I was really looking forward to it that year because they were so supportive from the moment they knew about the cancer. I can't describe how good it felt to hear from them on a daily basis and the research and work they put into learning about the disease and the treatments. We had a wonderful and laid back weekend. I was worried about them seeing me bald and wore a hat in their swimming pool but finally I just took it off and dove in. No one said a word or thought I looked strange. It was a very happy time for me.

When we got back home, I resumed my chemotherapy and finished the last 8 weeks and then pushed hard to start raditaion therapy right away to get it over with before our scuba trip to Belize. Radiation lasted for 7 weeks, 5 days per week but my other oncologist thought it was a good idea for me to break it up so I went with John to Washington DC to his annual conference after the 4th week of treatment.  This was not a problem and I truly believe that nothing I did that spring and summer caused any problems with my treatments. It was great to see our friends in DC and have a lot of laughs and do things like normal people who don't have cancer. We drank a lot and had great food. It was my chicken soup for the soul.

We also went scuba diving in Belize that October after all my treatments were over. I was still bald but had a nice little fine fuzz on my head and didn't care what anyone thought. It was like going home again and the diving was perfect. I'm so glad I didn't give up these trips that bad year. If I had, it would have been just a bad year, but it wasn't because I had an adventure and also was with friends and family whom I wouldn't have seen otherwise and who helped me through the worst part of it.

It's hard to give advice to people you don't know about situations you don't understand. All I can say is that for me, staying at home being sick and only going out for treatments would have been torture and I believe the results would not have been positive. Because I did not allow my illness to prevent my search of adventure and pleasure, it did not prevail. And I think I've beat this thing. It's been three years since the cancer appeared and no new tumors have been found. This is a very positive thing. And if it does ever return, I'll just do the treatments all over again because I am not afraid. The only thing I fear is being housebound and bored out of my scull.

Thanks for reading this non-humorous story. I promise tomorrow to bring something quite amusing to my blog.

Good night, and good luck