Real Food!

Eggs, oatmeal, cream of wheat, bacon, waffles, pizza, grilled cheese sandwich. That’s a list of things of I’ve eaten in the past few days. Not a full meals’ worth of any of them, but REAL FOOD!

It’s been over two weeks since my last treatment and I’m feeling better every day. My neck is nearly healed, and I’m beginning to have more and more energy. Rare is the point in a day when I feel simply beat up and exhausted.

Every time we eat, I still remind Suzy not to feel insulted if I can’t eat whatever she cooks. I don’t have many of my taste buds back yet, and the only things I can really taste are super sweet foods. Things will be much closer to normal when we get to the point where I cook and Suzy cleans up, the pattern we’ve had since I retired.

I have appointments with my chemo doctor and radiation oncologist on Tuesday. Hopefully I’ll be able to start winding down the pain medications and get the ok to get a covid vaccine when my turn comes. After that, assuming Arizona gets its worst in the WORLD covid numbers under control, I’ll be able to hit the golf course. Then things will really feel normal.

“Look around, look around at how lucky we to be alive today.” I’m getting close to being able to believe that again. I guess a quote by the still great philosopher Yogi Berra works, too: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

The physical part is getting better, but I’m not sure I will ever really be the same. Mayo has a support group for head and neck cancer patients and survivors. On a recent zoom meeting, there were people just diagnosed, folks 3 and 4 weeks into their treatments, a couple like me early in recovery, all the way to a woman 9 months after treatment. What struck me was the viciousness of cancer, how none of us deserve this even if our behaviors caused it. People get cancer in places I never imagined. It can strike anyone at anytime, and evidently anywhere. Every time I see these people and their caregivers, I feel like we’re in a club that none of us would ever choose to join.

I’m not sure if I can really express what this has all been like. I know I’ve been writing a lot, but I can never find the exact words. To be diagnosed with cancer, to have to make choices that we aren’t really educated enough to make, to grind through treatment when we have no choice but to grind day after day, week after week. To finally be done with treatment, to realize the short-term damage those treatments have caused. Then to start to recover and to have to wait months before knowing if the cancer is gone. I’m not sure anyone can understand unless they’ve lived it or been close to someone who has lived it.

Next time I golf, will I get mad if I hit it into the desert or will I just be happy to be there? What will it be like to see my golfing buddies after this? Or to play poker? Or to meet my fellow members of this cancer club in person after the pandemic eases up? Or to even just sit with someone and share a beer? Some of those would be strange enough to do, since we’ve been quarantining so much during the pandemic. Adding cancer to the mix? I guess it’s just cancer in the time of covid.

How do you explain this to folks? Do I need to? What do I say when I see someone who doesn’t know I’ve had this and they ask how I’ve been? Do I need like an elevator speech to explain it? How do I explain all the fear and anxiety that I have experienced? The radiation mask? The lack of control? All these great medical folks? How do I explain Suzy’s commitment and that of the whole Team Fleury? How do I describe all the people I’ve met that are somewhere along this path? How do I explain what I’ve learned? Will I even talk about this without crying or choking up?

The good news is that I’m getting better. I’m eating real food. Suzy and I are realizing that our old life is there, waiting for us. Well, maybe not our old life. But the post-cancer life. And the post-covid life.

I can’t wait to do something normal.