Waiting, waiting

One of the joys of anything to do with medical treatment in general,  and cancer treatment in particular, is WAITING.  Waiting for an appointment,  waiting for tests,  waiting for results.   For cancer it's always waiting to see what happens next.  With no "cure" for any cancer,  every one's experience is "Treat & Wait".  You treat,  you wait to see the results,  and for the real cancers (not like mine...) you wait to see if it spreads or comes back,  waiting for your 5 year "remission" time to come up.

Right now for me,  I am just waiting to see if I am going to crash after my chemo treatment.  It's now been 9 days since I finished up my Cladribine infusion.  Last time I did this,  about 1 to 2 weeks after infusion,  I went from feeling "pretty good" to feeling like absolute crap for 10 plus days.  Here I am at 9 days,  and for the most part,  I still feel really good.  No Crash.  Good,  right?

Well,  of course I can't shake the feeling that the truck I am expecting to get hit by is lurking around one corner or the other.  When it will appear and run me down is the question.  Then you start thinking "maybe I won't get the 'smack-down' this time".  That is a dangerous thought process,  as usually it's right about then the crash hits.  We shall see.

I did have an outbreak of one of those neat little things that chemo & a trashed immune system gets you.  Got a neat little outbreak of Shingles again.  One of those things you think of as an "Old People" disease,  one you will never have.  Turns out that after & during Chemo people are very susceptible to that little joy.  Since I had had a lovely bout with that 2 years after my last chemo,  I was able to identify  the outbreak,  get to the Doc,  and get a bunch of drugs going quickly.  A big dose of Steroids and Anti-Virals nipped this outbreak before things went real bad.  Neat thing about THESE drugs is it leaves me so hoarse I can barely talk.

A quick 'Crossin-Colorado "Public Service" announcement here....
If you ever had Chicken Pox,  and are over 50 years old or immune system compromised at all,  go get a Shingles Vaccination.  You do NOT want to have this shit.    Months of pain,  tingling,  itching, rashes and pain meds are not fun.  While learning that you can eat enough Vicodin week after week that you can adapt enough to do mountain bike races on the stuff (Performance enhancing?  not really....),  might be a neat little tidbit to learn about yourself,  I really advise against it.

So,  I wait.  At least I don't feel like crap.  Yet.

Am getting psyched for CX worlds this weekend.  Neat to cyber-stalk all the people you see every weekend in the masters races,  and then plan on having some folks over to watch the Elite Live streaming on Sunday.   Been fun reading about the Belgians and them having to travel more than 50 miles for a race for a change.  Poor Klaas Vantornout only has 3 bikes & 7 sets of wheels with him for worlds,  not his usual 7 bikes.   Big weekend.  Might even have a beer if I keep feeling like this.  (I hear there is even some "big game" later that day.....)

OK,  I realize that MAYBE everyone is done with the whole "Lance thing",  and MAYBE baseball can take some of the doping load with A-Rod,  but this little gem was too good not to share.  STELLAR  creativity.  Shot my drink out of my nose when I first watched this.  Can't help but make fun of the guy.