uno momento

sorry for not updating... just in the process of recuperating... intensification is done.. was done last thursday... now just resting and wanting to feel better... you'll know when I do...

peace

Good luck chuck

ok i got some energy and i thought i would follow through with some cc horror stories :)

i think writing about them will give people an idea of some of the things that can happen to cc patients apart from the obvious chemo nausea and fatigue....so if youre going through chemo make sure to ask your docs what the side effects (even the rare ones) are for every drug they put you on. So you may be wondering why im calling this entry " Good luck chuck" ?

well it has a little bit to do with the movie....and a lot to do with what i like to call my crazy days..

It all started on a regular visit to the hospital...some time in october of 2007...during my first cc treatment. After about a month of living in the hospital...i was discharged and began an outpatient treatment plan for the next 7 months. So this 'regular' visit turned out to be not so regular...I was doing well.....so well that the nurses told me that i could take a long weekend and get chemo on a monday instead of the planned sunday. Shahrzad was ecstatic but for some reason....this news really confused me. I simply couldnt wrap my mind around it. So after leaving the ward and getting in the car i asked shahrzad "did the nurses just give us a long weekend?" and she answered " yes".....and you'd think that would have cleared things up but i was still confused. During the drive home i asked Shahrzad a total of 10 times about the changed chemo date, and every time she answered with even more detail....but no matter the answer...i was uneasy. Even though i knew what the answer would be i felt the strangest urge to ask??I felt completely out of my body...

So my wife tells me that during this time she just chalked my confusion up to a way of dealing with my cc diagnosis. She calmed me down by telling me that it was completely normal to feel disconnected when something like this happens (getting cc that is)...so we went about our day....if we only knew haha

The next day was worse than the day before...while my wife was watching tv with me i kept feeling like she was upset with me....and i would ask her what i had done and no matter how many times she told me nothing was wrong i didnt believe her. By the end of the day i started telling her that i thought i was losing my mind so we decided to sit down and say some prayers to calm me down.

Now from here on out I dont remeber a lot of what happend so im telling you what my wife and my family saw. Shahrzad said that while reading the prayer she noticed i was taking small peices of tissue, rolling them into 4 balls, and placing them in a line between us. When she asked me what i was doing i replied " YOU are the crazy one! i just proved it! you said the prayer 4 times!" She only made it half way through one.

when dinner came around my mind was in full blown crazy mode. when my sister and brother asked me to decide between 3 movies: harry potter, good luck chuck, and another one i cant remember i chose Good luck chuck...but when my brother asked me if we could see harry potter instead i replied " Good luck chuck".....then my wife asked me another question and i replied "good luck chuck" and for the rest of the questions that night i replied " good luck chuck"...just like a broken record. When i finally stopped saying good luck chuck i stopped talking altogether. my family kept asking me why i wouldnt talk and i just pointed at my watch laughing and smiling. Obviously this whole time they were calling the docs and at midnight i finally spoke. when my mother asked me why i wouldnt speak i said

" because they told me not to"

So i was admitted back into the hospital and for the next 10 days lost my mind more and more. I didnt know the date, i couldnt remember my wifes name, i thought the nurses were trying to assasinate my mother and that Shahrzad was the only one who could stop them, i tried escaping the hospital about four times, Shahrzad tells me stories of how she had to wrestle me down to the ground to stop me from leaving the ward at 5 in the morning. I would stop eating for days and stop talking for days, i refused to take medication....the only way they could get me to take them was when shahrzad pretended that if i didnt take them... she would have to. I would wake up in the middle of the night, pee in a cup and stay in the bathroom for hours to make sure the bad guys didnt get it.....Shahrzad told me that she would have to treat me like a child....she would trick me into looking the other way while she grabbed the urine and flushed it. She stayed with me almost everynight until the hickman incident..after that my mom forced her to go home and rest.

what is the hickman incident? well let me tell you.

First of all...from Wikipedia:

A Hickman line is an intravenous catheter most often used for the administration of chemotherapy or other medications, as well as for the withdrawal of blood for analysis...

My Hickman was put in at the beginning of treatment and one night during my crazy days i decided that i didnt really like it after all. Shahrzad tells me that she woke up at 3 a.m and found me full blown naked getting out of my hospital bed. I had wet the bed and so she called the nurse over to get clean sheets. While about 3 nurses cleaned the bed, Shahrzad was holding me up when i suddenly grabbed hold of my Hickman line and pulled as hard as i could! I remember hearing the nurses freak out and start swearing a lot..i guess they werent used to dealing with crazy people haha. I thought i was successful and had pulled out the line... but shahrzad told me later that she managed to grab the line right above my hand so the tubing snapped instead of coming out of me. I remember her just looking at me holding my hickman and saying " why did you do that Nima....you know that was dangerous"

So a doc had to be called in and i had to have minor surgery to get the line out...i had completely pulled off the bottom half that has all the outlets and made the line basically useless...if i had pulled it out i would have bled out and probably died....so im forever thankful to my wife....i still cant understand how she stayed completely calm that night even when the nurses were yelling "S*&%#....F*%$# he pulled it out!!" all around her.

anyway the next night wasnt great either....my mom spent the night with me and she said that i was being disruptive or something so they had to restrain me....and they gave me a sedative. Things basically just got worse...I was put through tons of tests to check my brain, physiological tests...you name it...i got it...the docs didnt know what was wrong with me....and not to sound ungrateful but some of the docs really didnt listen to my mom or shahrzad. The whole time Shahrzad kept telling them that she thought the reason i was like this was because i had just stopped taking a steroid called prednisone and with all the research online it says that a steroid induced psychosis can happen when you dont taper off the steroid( it eventually wears off by itself)...well they didnt think that was the case. So they just told my family that i maybe just had a psychotic break because of how hard it is to deal with a cc diagnosis...and that they didnt know if i would ever get better...

This story has a good ending....as you can tell.....i eventually did get better...it took about two weeks but i slowly just got back to normal. I was afraid for a long time afterwards that i was going crazy again but thank God it hasnt happened. Anyway the good news is that when we moved to toronto...our doctor here thought it was ridiculous that the docs in vancouver didnt listen to my mom and Shahrzad. He said it was OBVIOUSLY a steroid induced psychosis. I really wish they had just told my family and Shahrzad that....it would have saved them a lot of tears and worry.

Anyway here are two videos about 3 weeks after my crazy days. They opted not to put in another hickman line haha just incase i went crazy again...so this is them putting in my PICC. sorry bout the camera moving alot....Shahrzad was trying not to watch while she was filming and my sister in law leila was also having a bit of a hard time haha. just a warning....if youre not interested in surgical procedures....dont watch this.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

peace

some pics to share

Thought Id put up some pics of what the wifey and I look like these days....we have to spend a lot of time inside.....so we tend to look a little scruffy ha ha

she looks so comfy!!!

long time

so it's been a while huh... I guess the news of having to go through more treatment hit me pretty bad... haha...

The day I found out that I had to go through another cycle i was pretty bummed... confided in my wife... and she made me feel better... but the day rest of the day I was pretty "frowned faced"... but the next day I wasn't going to let it get to me... I figured I had a good 4 days of feeling the best I've felt in 8 months... so like that I made the best of it... since my counts were good I ate sushi everyday at least once... oh man was it awesome... I miss sushi soo much... the reason I can't have sushi while going through treatment is cause of my lack of an immune system; it can't fight off the 'rawness' of certain things...

Man I was craving sushi for some time, and I think by having it everyday i might have made the craving worse... but it was well worth it... ... Shahrzad was enjoying it as well... not as much as me though. I think I did a little dance with every sushi piece I put in my mouth...

Monday, nov 9, my birthday... twas awesome... at midnight, my wife came from the our bedroom shouting "Happy birthday".. then pulled me into the bedroom (not what your thinking... ;) ) and showed me this...

She had 2 choices of gifts for me. 1) Coupon for breakfast with hash browns, eggs and bacon, shoes and something else we won't talk about 2) Comfy chair from ikea, comfy expensive sweat pants. I chose #1... once I gave her my option we proceeded to order my presents online, and spent the rest of the night in bed watching movies and being comfy... the next morning the plan was for her to make breakfast in bed, but I couldn't have her make all the stuff by herself, so I joined her in the kitchen and we made breakfast together... it reminded me of before cc, when we were dating. We used to cook together all the time and chit chat... this was while working in Israel,where we first met...anyway the breakfast was awesome. I'm a HUGE breakfast fan... and I can't believe it but I haven't had a good breakfast in a long time, and it was real nice having it on my birthday!!!

the rest of the day was spent in bed watching Monk (i've been really into that show the past few weeks)...

Later that night we ordered sushi and had an awesome feast... and twas the end of an AMAZING birthday!!!... I had such a good day...

The last time I remember enjoying my birthday was my 20th... This was before I met my wife... I was working in Israel at the time and lived in the city of Akka (Acre/Acco, there are many ways to spell it), the old part of the city.. and I spent most of the afternoon in silent meditation and prayer in the shrine of our Holy Place... I know to the average person it might seem a little fanatic... but it was very peaceful... since then ive never really had the opportunity to celebrate my b-day.... my wife and I had a long distance relationship for 2 yrs so before she moved to vancouver we never really got to celebrate each others birthdays together either....celebrating it with her was nice....

Anyway the next three weeks is gonna be a breeze....thats what we keep saying anyway....and my birthday was a good recharge for it. What ive learnt from this is that when you have good days...make the most of them....

peace

AGH!!

I came home from the hospital today and guess what information I came back with...

Instead of the great news that im finally in my maintenance phase... which is what was expected....I have ONE more cycle of intensification .. so three more weeks... and to top it off my Dr is putting me BACK on steroids... because my knees are "just soo messed up it doesn't matter..."

So now i can say hello to my two long lost friends...welcome back puffy face.....welcome home knee pain....its been a while haha

my birthday is on monday... at least I get to feel good then.. but come wednesday ill be going right back to what ive known for almost a year... back to chemo we go haha

*sigh*

peace

our very own creepy pumpkin

So Shahrzad decided that even though we cant go out..and there would most definitely be no children( FULL of viruses) knocking for candy at our door...that we would at least celebrate Halloween by carving a pumpkin. This is a quality that i love about my wife. No matter what is happening...she always wants to celebrate....

Anyway the idea of dressing up was immediately thrown out....that would have been a little depressing....but the thought of fresh pumpkin pie made up for it. Because i dont eat sugar i havent been able to eat pumpkin pie because it usually comes from a can...and thats got loads of sugar. Ive never really been a huge fan anyways but Shahrzad is set on not letting cc affect even my ability to just taste a pumpkin pie. So we'll see how it goes when she makes it :)

Anyway thanks to everyone who told me their costumes...keep em coming.

And in keeping up with the halloween theme...ive decided to dedicate the next couple posts to some of my cc horror stories. Ive noticed that when my wife and I tell people some of the weird, crazy stuff thats happened to me during treatment..people get really uncomfortable.haha No offense i probably would too if it wasnt my life...so im going to preface the next couple posts with this. We believe that life is serious enough....you dont have to join it.

Laugh....its ok.

peace

come on guys

very quickly...you can just comment...don't worry about emailing me your photos....

what did you dress up as for halloween??

peace

feeling better

alright... I am finally starting to feel a little better... don't know what it's been but ever since the last 2 weeks.. it seems like my body has had enough... not much to update really... or that I can think of right now...

we carved a pumpkin right before halloween ended... or should I say I took pictures while my wife carved... i'll post them later when i'm not in bed.

it's been a while since i've dressed up for halloween...last time I did I went as a samurai... i think that was in 2003... I wonder what you guys dressed up as? tell me... lets see who has had the best halloween costume this year...if you guys want email me the photos and i'll post em up and we'll poll who's was better!!FUN!!! or just post em up with no poll whichever you prefer!!... i'll be dissappointed if I don't receieve any emails cause this would be the most fun I could have for halloween (sorry for guilting you into sending me a photo.. but whatever works right ;) )

I can live vicariously through you guys!!!

peace