Run bottle, run

Exercise is cancer-limiting and I was doing lots of it in the build up to treatment. Then the tube leading to my heart was connected to a baby bottle full of medicine and my bum was zapped with energy and the thought of exercise disappeared almost as quickly as my appetite.

But people should exercise, and so I started by walking on a treadmill until the anti-nausea medication restored a tolerance for food. Then I started jogging again.

Jogging with a PICC line is interesting, but not as interesting as it must be for passersby. I look like some type of half-man-half-machine from the future. The bandage wrapped around my bicep is big, the tube leading from it to the chemo bottle is obvious and the bottle stuffed down my singlet takes the shape of a metallic control panel.

Exercise can be used to prevent cancer, prevent tumours from spreading and prevent tumours from returning. Scientists have worked out how much exercise is required for each type of cancer.

Colon cancer is a demanding cancer when it comes to exercise.

My summary from Anticancer by D. Servan-Schreiber

Exercise can be measured in METs. A measure of 1 MET is the amount of energy your body needs to function when resting. Sadly, watching TV provides the body with as much exercise (1 MET, ie. none) as resting, even if you change the channel a lot like I do.

If your body is fighting breast cancer studies have shown you can really help it out by exercising for 9 METs a week. To help fight colorectal cancer you need to do 18 METs a week. To have an effect on prostate cancer you need to do 30 METs a week.

I feel scarred and heavy, but I have to keep moving

Mum's the word

By Jo, Melbourne, Australia

I would like to commend my son Ben on his strength and determination to fight his cancer and to all of you who are supporting and loving my boy.

It was not an easy road for him, or those who love him, to get to this point. We have cried and have been angry, but mostly we have shared disbelief that this happening. My own acceptance that this is happening to my son has been difficult, to say the least.

The whole experience to this point has been surreal. I have listened carefully to diagnoses and treatment plans, but felt at many times that we were in the room watching it happen to other people, not us.

We are getting there. Yes this is happening to us, this is happening to my son.  It’s not another family with cancer that you hear about from a friend of a friend. This is us.

Acceptance has lifted a heavy weight and Ben has set an example for me to follow.

Now we fight. With all the preliminary tests complete and my future grandchildren in the freezer we are ready to begin the fight of our lives.

Somehow it’s easier now that the treatments have started. Chemo 24/7 means it is difficult to watch a man who only last week grazed all day struggle to eat so little. Medication can restore his appetite. French toast and baked beans are the order of the day.

Radiation so far has had no side effects. Today (treatment 4 of 28) the technicians showed me how they set him up on the machine. I watched the laser lights criss-cross his body and silently prayed the they knew what they were doing and hit the right spots every single time.

While there is no pain during the radiation the enormity of it all sent a chill down my spine.  Holding back the tears, I quietly left the room and waited for it to be over.

The hardest thing for me as mother, protector and friend is I want to take this away from him.

I can’t, and it is the most helplessness any parent can feel because that’s our job: we take away pain, fix problems and we make things go away, usually!

Not this time. This time we just stick together and ride it out. I tell him I love him every day.

Mum xxx

Chemo cravings

The chemotherapy bottle was connected on Wednesday and I underwent all three acts of the chemo cycle almost immediately.

Chemotherapy: A digestive opera in three acts

Act I: Lose appetite
Act II: Become nauseous
Act III: Vomit

In a bout of maternal intuition and knowledge transfer, Mum warned me that chemotherapy would feel like being pregnant. I have no way to compare chemotherapy and pregnancy, but between us they sound like similar processes.

Ways having chemotherapy is like pregnancy

• You are tired
• The taste of food changes
• You go off some foods, immediately and violently (the thought of cooked mushrooms makes me rush for a bathroom)
• You get cravings (I can't get enough salty French toast)
• You watch other people eat all day and then wake up at 1 AM hungry as hell

A staple for vegetarians, lost to me for the time being

Piccolo piccolo

Because my greedy tumour is big and invading other parts of me, I need to have chemoradiation therapy for six weeks. It is hoped that these two treatments will shrink the tumour and make surgery easier.

Chemotherapy before surgery is different to chemotherapy after surgery.

The role of chemotherapy before surgery, when used with radiation therapy, is to sensitise the tumour to the radiation. In my case, the chemotherapy is a low dose and needs to slowly enter my body 24-7, for six weeks.

For this you need a PICC line. A PICC line is like an iPod crossed with a drip: It is funky looking, based on cool technology, and strapped to my arm.

PICC stands for peripherally inserted central catheter

It is peripheral because the tube carrying medicine starts outside my body and then dives inside a vein in my arm. The inserted bit refers to the fact that a doctor has to feed the line in and this is done under sterile conditions, like a mini-surgery. It's central because the tube is fed all the way to a major vein right near my heart. Catheter is another word for 'tube into body'.

The tube stays in place because of a funky piece of engineering that sticks to my arm and clips the tube in place. In the olden days they used to have to stitch the clip into the arm, but not now.

The clip on my arm that holds the PICC line in place, I can't help seeing animals where others see man.

Right, but what does it feel like?

I can't feel the tube inside me, and I didn't feel it making its way to my heart. I had a local anaesthetic in my arm to numb the skin where the tube was first inserted only. The point where the tube enters my arm is a little sore but that will go away.

The thin tube enters a vein in my left bicep, travels across my chest and stops in a major vein that enters the heart. 

It begins

It's official, I'm now fighting my cancer with cytotoxins (chemotherapy) and 

ionizing energy (radiation therapy).

Rockstar band: A hospital band showing my rockstar surname

Hello heart:  The PICC line that will deliver chemotherapy medicine close to my heart for the next 6 weeks

Baby bottle: The small bottle I wear around my neck full of chemotherapy medicine that feeds the PICC line

Medicinal canvas: A lot of work goes into finding the right way to zap the tumour

  

Radiation rescue: The position I lie in while my bum is zapped from three angles.

Identity is everything: The photo used each visit to prove I am me