Tag Archives: positive approach

The Chemo Diaries: 10 Months

September 29, 2015Cancer, Health and Wellnessadenocarcinoma, body, Cancer, Chemotherapy, Health, Lung Cancer, positive approach, Positivity, Science, toxins, wellnessJeffrey Poehlmann

Let me just start by saying I feel great. I just had another CT scan about a week ago and it is showing clearer edges to the main tumor, some puckering in the middle and overall indicates good progress. Yesterday I had my infusion of Alimta and for a nice change of pace I have cut my steroid use in half — which so far is going quite well for me. I am not a fan of steroids and this was one of my top objectives. The result has been a clearer head so far, a bit more sleep and less swelling of my feet, which translates to a nice win in my playbook. All in all, I am quite pleased with my week.

The only downsides are things that probably won’t be issues for a while, possibly a long while. One of the effects of infusions is that slowly but surely veins collapse. I always had marvelous veins for drawing blood but they have taken a heap of abuse over the past year and a half. The labs approved by my HMO tend to use the biggest needles possible for the fastest draw and while that never bothered me before, the chemo had made it so that I bruised easily and had to rotate veins every few weeks just to avoid issues with leaking. It wasn’t until about eight months in to my treatment that a nurse in the infusion clinic asked me why I didn’t just request butterfly needles… The veins are much less prone to bruising now. Who knew?

Still, the veins are a bit of an issue. I still have plenty to experiment with, but we had to move from the arm down to the hand for this last round. My hand veins, possibly due to my normally low blood pressure, stay fairly plump most of the time, making them good targets. But it got the nurse talking to me about putting in a port one day, just to make things easier. Such a port would be under the skin just over my heart, kind of a permanent plastic plug right into my largest vein. Supposedly that would be good for a few years of constant use. Still, it isn’t something I am in a rush to do.

But a few years or more is certainly what I am looking at right now. While no one will put a timeline on anything regarding treatment, my oncologist did say that he expected I would remain on this current regimen for a fairly long time. That is pretty good news in its own special way. Of course, the main reason for switching off it would be the commercial availability of PD1 therapies. We are eager to try those, but not so eager to qualify for clinical trials, which would require progression of the cancer after the failure of my current chemo. For now, that wait is a good one.

Perspective: One of the Greatest Gifts of a Cancer Diagnosis

September 18, 2015Cancer, Health and Wellness, Reasonadenocarcinoma, Blogs, body, Cancer, Chemotherapy, communication, Education, Fear, Health, language, Lung Cancer, misinformation, positive approach, Positivity, Reason, Sense, toxins, wellnessJeffrey Poehlmann

I was skulking around the house last week, ruminating on just how bad I smelled. My wife was getting annoyed with me, insisting that I did not smell any differently; it was a hot, stagnant summer day and I was sweating (I felt) profusely. My chemo treatment was beginning to purge from my system and it seemed to me that as I would walk around a corner or even just turn my head, I would get a wiff of something nasty, putrid, sour. And I couldn’t shake it — that smell was just plain bad.

But it couldn’t be identified, or even located. And I was the only one smelling it.

Then I started to take stock of all my symptoms, which I do now and then as both a way of monitoring my body and keeping a sense of humor about the process. Because it can be pretty gross. Let’s face it, no one likes to think of themselves covered in puss-filled sores, hobbling about on swollen feet and wafting fetid breezes from God knows where throughout the room. Continue reading Perspective: One of the Greatest Gifts of a Cancer Diagnosis →

The Chemo Diaries: Summer Maintenance

July 17, 2015Cancer, Health and Wellnessadenocarcinoma, Blogs, Cancer, Chemotherapy, Lung Cancer, positive approach, Positivity, toxins, wellnessJeffrey Poehlmann

One of the fun things about chemotherapy is the surprise side effects that pop up, differing from one round to the next. For the most part, after you’ve had a few rounds, you know what to expect in broad terms. Some issues get cumulatively more pronounced, others perhaps seem less so. But the element of surprise is always there with something.

When I switched from the three drug infusion that was designed to beat the cancer cells with a sledge hammer, to a single drug infusion that is basically intended to keep tapping at those cells in a more gentle fashion, I noticed a huge difference in how I felt during the critical week that followed. After six rounds of the hard stuff, it had been really getting to me. My body, as healthy as it otherwise is, was feeling a bit worse for wear. I was exhausted. I felt like I had a brain cloud. Then suddenly, after the maintenance infusion cycles began, it was like a weight had been lifted. It wasn’t necessary for me to take my anti-nausea meds anymore. I could think (relatively) more clearly.

There were still side effects, though. The chemo still made me tired, still had smaller versions of the same things that had been bothering me before. Now my feet were puffy, then it would be something else. Another cycle or so in and some of the issues I had been so happy to avoid seemed to come back again, perhaps in a lighter dose, and I spent a couple weeks with some truly odd gastrointestinal issues before going in for another in my string of exciting CT scans. Continue reading The Chemo Diaries: Summer Maintenance →

Vanity

July 14, 2015Cancer, Fear, Health and Wellness, Reasonbody, Education, end of civilization, Health, Labels, Lies, misinformation, positive approach, Positivity, Reason, wellnessJeffrey Poehlmann

I was reading a friend’s blog post a while back, a personal rant she shot off about tolerance (especially among the particular Christian community of which she considers herself a part) in response to Bruce Jenner’s transition to Caitlyn. I had not realized (at that time) that this was a big deal, or even anything particularly new to discuss, but then I have been living in Los Angeles for about 30 years and this sort of thing is long past novel for me. I know that there are plenty of bigots and idiots in Southern California, but I’ve been fortunate enough to surround myself with, if not always like-minded, at least open-minded individuals for most of my time here. I am also fairly confident that even my oldest friends from rural Illinois who remain entrenched in “Middle America” are soundly rooted in kindness and tolerance. In my well-lived-in fantasy world, it often seems that most narrow-minded people exist strictly as online trolls, waiting to lob their tirades at rational science or reasonably centrist political viewpoints. Then, every now and again, I wake up and venture outside.

For a long time, I’ve been repeating my belief that much of what is wrong with our particular society is rooted in a lack of Critical Thinking Skills. And I believe that tolerance, in general, is indicative of that same problem. If we, as a culture, were to exercise better critical thinking, then bigotry of all types should readily dissipate. After all, bigotry stems from a certain dogmatic thought process which is destroyed by self-examination and a broader understanding of how things actually work and fit together. Therefore, any thoughtful group of people ought to find that their differences make them stronger and unite them better, unless those differences are Continue reading Vanity →

Ignoring the Plumbing: Never a Good Plan

July 13, 2015Cancer, Health and Wellness, Reasonadenocarcinoma, body, Cancer, Chemotherapy, Education, Health, Lung Cancer, positive approach, Positivity, Sense, wellnessJeffrey Poehlmann

Ignoring the plumbing is one of those things that always seems to lead to more problems (and expenses) down the road. Good maintenance is the best practice for a cost-effective and hopefully long life of the system. This is true, not just for our own bodies, but also quite literally when it comes to household plumbing.

Not long after I began my chemotherapy, I realized that I had been putting off some of my own maintenance for far too long. In this case, it was a wobbly toilet in the main bathroom, where one of the bolts that used to hold it securely in position against the floor had rusted away and, not long after, the seal on the caulk had come loose. Realization struck that it was only a matter of time until something would go terribly wrong, and I imagined all sorts of disasters I did not want to deal with following an infusion (or pretty much any other time, ever).

I had looked into toilet repair on YouTube. Since that is how I solve most of my plumbing issues, I watched a five-minute video on how to install a wax ring and set a toilet properly. Everything was ready, except that my kit from Home Depot was missing the actual wax ring it was supposed to include with all the other bits of hardware. Fortunately, I noticed that before taking the toilet off the floor. Continue reading Ignoring the Plumbing: Never a Good Plan →

Clip Show: Cancer Edition 2

July 8, 2015Cancer, Health and Wellness, Reasonadenocarcinoma, Blogs, body, Cancer, Chemotherapy, communication, Education, Fear, Health, Lies, Lung Cancer, misinformation, paranoia, positive approach, Positivity, Science, Sense, wellnessJeffrey Poehlmann

Welcome to another Clip Show! Here are some things that were lingering in open tabs for a while that I intended to use or share, but haven’t found a proper post within which to do so. I encourage you to click the links and explore, watch the videos here and enjoy. Hopefully there is something for everyone.

I don’t normally reference Fox News as a source of reason, but here is a great interview with actress Maura Tierney discussing her experience with chemotherapy:

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/09/26/er-star-maura-tierney-debunks-chemo-myths-after-breast-cancer/

Continue reading Clip Show: Cancer Edition 2 →

Integrative Medicine, Positive Care and Negative Ramifications

May 14, 2015Cancer, Health and Wellness, ReasonBlogs, body, business, Cancer, Chemotherapy, commercialism, communication, consumerism, Education, Health, Lies, misinformation, poison, positive approach, Positivity, Reason, Science, Sense, toxins, wellnessJeffrey Poehlmann

If we, as a society, could allocate just an additional $120 million each year toward research and development of new cancer treatments, that would seem like a great idea. Because there is a lot of money out there already directed at existing therapies, running clinical trials of proven concepts and supporting the refinement of effective treatments already in existence, it also seems like a great idea to take this $120 million and direct it toward new concepts and approaches that are not yet mainstreamed into Western Medicine. This is the reason, I suspect, that over the past twenty years or so, Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) has morphed into Integrative Medicine and has been granted enormous research subsidies and acceptance within many mainstream health institutions. Allocating even a mere $120 million is a huge responsibility, so it also seems like it would be a great idea to carefully vet the areas on which the funding will be spent.

Here is some amazing news: the actual amount of government funding for research on Complementary and Alternative Medicine in 2015 and 2016 has reached $369 and $378 million annually, according to the National Institute of Health. This should be a Golden Age of Medical Advancement! Sizable annual funding being made available outside of the mainstream of modern medicine must be the answer to why there has been no definitive Cancer Cure.

Only it isn’t. And the reason is Continue reading Integrative Medicine, Positive Care and Negative Ramifications →

Embrace the Bad Stuff, It’s Good for You

May 11, 2015Cancer, Health and Wellness, Reasonbody, Cancer, communication, Health, positive approach, Positivity, Sense, wellnessJeffrey Poehlmann

Nobody likes slogging through the shit. That’s pretty safe to say. But sometimes it must be done, whether we like it or not. If there are going to be hardships, we are told to look for a “Silver Lining,” as though our upside-down umbrella will magically fill with pennies. In the shit, those pennies might be damn near impossible to see.

Many people retreat as a first resort. Hide from the problems rather than face them. I would go so far as to suggest that such behavior is basic human nature: fight or flight syndrome, where running from danger is our first instinct — until we are cornered. The problem with health issues such as Cancer is that, whether one wants to admit it or not, the patient is ostensibly cornered before there is even a proper diagnosis. So any flight that may be attempted is not only in vain, it is illusionary. Being the ostrich may offer a temporary sense of calm to some people, but it also does nothing to help move through the difficulty and onward toward a better existence.

Self-help gurus and the proponents of countless “programs,” and also probably my mother at some point, have said that we grow through our challenges. In truth, it is the struggles in life both big and small that build what we call “character.” That nebulous term applies Continue reading Embrace the Bad Stuff, It’s Good for You →

Not Dead Yet, No Matter What You May Have Read

May 4, 2015Cancer, Health and Wellness, Reasonadenocarcinoma, body, Cancer, Changing the Narrative, Chemotherapy, communication, Critical Thinking, Education, Fear, Health, journalism, Labels, Lung Cancer, paranoia, positive approach, Positivity, Reason, Science, wellnessJeffrey Poehlmann

A person I know quite well — and with whom I recently have had several lengthy conversations about my current state of affairs — offered an interesting appraisal of her understanding of my health and well-being to my wife. She said, rather unceremoniously, that she had expected me to be dying. In fact, she seemed quite surprised (and possibly a bit put off) by how healthy I appeared. Turns out, I have news for her:

I’m not dead yet.

In fact, here I am, looking quite well (and dare I say “dashing”) in my new progressive lenses picked up today to aid my aging eyes. True, after over 15 years of having a stable prescription, the chemotherapy seems to have begun affecting my vision ever so slightly, at least in the first couple of feet. So this minor side effect has required me to jump straight into trifocal territory. Aside from the minor “swimmy” effect of turning my head side to side while looking through the “mid-range” section, these are actually quite amazing. But that isn’t really what this entry is about, so I’m going to move along.

The thing that most startled me, and which I actually took some offense at, was the notion that a person who is not stupid managed to ignore virtually everything that she had been told about my condition, the state of cancer research and, perhaps most importantly, why statistics do not tell a whole story, or often even a remotely correct one. And what did this person rely upon to make up her mind about what I was going through and my prognosis for continuing life?

Continue reading Not Dead Yet, No Matter What You May Have Read →

Narratives Matter, Beginning to End

April 18, 2015Cancer, Fear, Health and Wellness, Reasonbody, Cancer, communication, Education, Fear, Health, language, positive approach, Positivity, Reason, Sense, wellnessJeffrey Poehlmann

On the heels of a recent discussion on changing the Narrative of Cancer as a means to enable better communication and understanding with regard to the hundreds of cancer variants, I came across a very interesting article on a closely related topic: changing the Narrative of Dying. Far from being a depressing or downbeat approach, the article discusses the need for reevaluating our collective understanding of the “end of life” process in order to facilitate a healthier and happier means for saying our goodbyes without forgetting that, until the last moment, we are all still living and participating in this world. It touches on some important ideas, pivoting about the notion that our system, our society, marginalizes and fears death and, more specifically, the process of dying. Yet, death is as much a part of our existence as birth.
Continue reading Narratives Matter, Beginning to End →

Just Bad for You

Saving you from yourself