Month: August 2020

61 Apprehensive,Wistful, and Tansy* bugs.

~ Roger JG Albert ~ 2 Comments

A couple of issues have been dogging me lately and are crying to be released into the blogosphere. One is the fact that I am no longer on chemo and what that means, particularly with regard to my future treatments and my relationship with ‘my’ medical team. The other is a nagging, recurring introspection around my death and dying. Let me start with my limbo between chemo and remission.

Apprehensiveness

So, I’m not on chemo, at least not for now. Since October of last year I’ve been carefully supervised by a local GP oncologist and the Cancer Care Centre at the North Island Hospital in the Comox Valley. What happens now that I’m not on a regular regime of chemotherapy? I really don’t know, yet.

I called the Cancer Care Centre last week and they told me to contact my oncologist at the BC Cancer Agency (BCCA) in Victoria. Well, I contacted the BCCA to find out that the oncologist I thought I had is no longer employed at the BCCA and hasn’t been for two months or so. (Gee, thanks for letting me know.) It turns out I’ve been assigned a ‘new’ oncologist, one who has recently come here from Alberta. I have not met him but I’m scheduled to go to Victoria for an appointment with him in late October. His assistant told me to contact my local GP oncologist in the meantime. I get the sense that I’m getting a bit of a run around. I don’t think anyone is out to deliberately mess with me, but I’m feeling a little apprehensive about what happens now. It looks like I’ll have to be the squeaky wheel to get any answers. Let the squeaking begin.

I’ve noted this before, but one thing I am very grateful for is a great palliative care team. I can now report that my pain levels are going down steadily. That said, the weakness in my legs has not abated and that’s my main worry. That means that the neurological damage is not being affected by the meds I’m taking for pain. The pain is attenuating but the weakness is not. I’m still walking with two canes. I DO expect my strength to improve. Patience is the name of the game right now but I’m not that good at being patient.

Wistfulness

Yes, I am a bit wistful, longing for a more settled, less precarious, state of life. Of course, life is never settled but that doesn’t mean I can’t wish for it. Life means movement and change but we are not alway happy with that state of affairs. We resist change by getting into routines and habits. We can delude ourselves into believing that life is stable when we do the same things day after day, week after week. The fact is, life is only finally settled when it reaches its destination.

In France in 2007, Carolyn and I boarded a fast train (TGV) from Paris to Montpellier in the south not far from the Spanish border. Arianne and Tim were living in Montpellier at the time doing post-graduate work at the university there. The train was incredibly fast (TGV is Très Grande Vitesse), moving at an average speed of over 300 kilometres per hour. Yet it was the smoothest train ride I had ever experienced (and I had experienced many in my youth). There was no clickety-clack, that most familiar sound I had heard on every train trip I had ever taken in Canada between New Westminster and Edmonton (where I attended boarding school). Lengths of track in France are welded together making for a single track running for hundreds of kilometres. No seams, no clickety-clack. Frankly, I found it a bit surreal but amazing at the same time. I had filmed part of the trip just as I had filmed other events on our six week visit to France that year, but I had a hard drive crash later and all my recordings from our 2007 trip were lost. What I have not lost, however, are my memories of that trip and our whole time in France that year. I still have vivid memories of catching the train in Paris, almost missing it, boarding without the requisite documents, settling down in first class (we decided to treat ourselves), and relishing this unique experience.

In bed a few nights ago after turning off the light by my bed my mind wandered again as it often has in the last few months to my death and dying. I had been looking for a metaphor I could use to make sense of my death, to give me some relief from the constant reminders of my demise. The reality is that I’m on borrowed time with the inevitable outcome of my death looming. My brain wants to keep coming back to that. It’s determined that I will be relentlessly reminded of my death and it will make sure that that reminder holds pride of place in my frontal cortex, not content with having it stay in the back of my mind where denial is so easy. We live by metaphors so I figured it should not be too difficult to come up with a good one. But I’m not sure a metaphor can win a contest with my brain when it comes to the ominous death watch I’m experiencing.

Then, our French TGV trip came to mind. The more I considered it, the more it made sense to me as a metaphor for life. That conviction was further reinforced as I read the article I link to below on our fear of death. The message in that article is simple: life is finite so make the best of it.

How to not fear your death by Sam Dresser

Using a somewhat questionable syllogism in this article Dresser asks us to consider whether or not we are afraid of the time before we were born, when we didn’t exist. If we aren’t afraid of that time, then why should we be afraid of death which is simply a time of non-existence much like our time pre-birth?

Yes, I suppose so, but it’s not that simple. Before being born, in that time of nothingness, there is no accumulation of life’s memories, of hugs, orgasms, loves, hates, good meals, accomplishments, and regrets. There is no possibility of loss or even the conception of loss. The anticipation of death, by contrast, involves facing the loss of everything, including experiences and all things material and immaterial.

Of course there is no perfect metaphor, but thinking of our TGV trip as a metaphor for life (actually any trip will do), it’s obvious that before boarding the train there was anticipation but no knowledge of the imminent experience. Once on board, there is full knowledge that eventually the trip will come to an end but the passing scenery, the food, the weird passengers on the other side of the aisle, all consume our attention. Eventually, of course, time is up, the train pulls into the station and we are compelled to disembark. We may not want to leave the train, having enjoyed the trip so much, but that’s not an option. We must leave the train and its memories behind. Yes, coming into the station and dying are comparable I suppose. Both are inevitable, both are necessary.

Yeah, maybe that works, but I have to think about it some more.

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Tansy!

You might have seen tansies at one time or another. They aren’t super common but can often be found on vacant lots. In fact, the tansies in images 1 through 3 were photographed in an otherwise empty lot in our neighbourhood (by Carolyn). I sequenced the photos below to go from a wide to a tight view. The 4th image is one I took with the WiFi microscope at full magnification. Every one of the tansy flower heads is made up of over a hundred of the compacted cone/shafts you see in the 4th image. So, in image 1 you look over a minor sea of flowers. In image 4 you get close and personal.

What you don’t see in any of these images is what you see in the video that completes this gallery of images, namely the army of insects that populate tansy flower heads. You may be seeing only flowers when you look at images 1 through 3, but you’re also looking at bugs, lots of bugs, bugs invisible to the naked eye. The number of microscopic bugs out there is staggering. I won’t speculate on how many of them you had for dinner or are living in your eyebrows. That may be something you’d rather not be reminded of. Sorry.

I find it fascinating that we miss so much when we see the world with our limited eyesight. Truth is we see a narrow slice of the world, and that, unfortunately I think, also limits our appreciation of vast unseen, yet important to us, aspects of the world.

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Tansy flower at full magnification with thrip (we think). Click twice on this image to activate it.

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*a plant of the daisy family with yellow flat-topped button-like flower heads and aromatic leaves, formerly used in cooking and medicine.

60 So now what? (…and microscopic events)

~ Roger JG Albert ~ 6 Comments

Thursday, August 13th is the second Thursday since early October, 2019 that I have not taken Bertezomib or cyclophosphamide, the two main chemo meds that I’ve been taking for months. I’m still on a low dose of dexamethasone and now nortriptyline, along with low doses of hydromorphone. My palliative care team is now fully involved in my case because of the Bortezomib induced neuropathy I am experiencing. Oncologists know very little about pain and make no bones about it, as I’ve noted before, nor do most GPs, so it’s up to the palliative care doctors to do what they can to relieve pain. GPs are often left to deal with the pain their patients experience but it’s often a guessing game finding the right palliative. It’s best left to the experts.

As it turns out, hydromorphone may not be the best opiate for me. In fact, it may be exacerbating my pain issues. So, back to the drawing board. We’ll be modifying my pain med regime one step at a time to ascertain the impact of whatever it is we do without crowding the issue by changing more than one med at a time. I can tell you one thing: I’m sick and tired of being in mind-numbing pain all the time.

Frankly, I’m feeling somewhat adrift. I was so used to the chemo regime and now that it’s gone, I’m struggling with what to make of it. So many unknowns as I slide into a time without chemo but with no promise of remission or relapse. I’m sure I’m not alone in this living purgatory, somewhere between chemo and remission. My GP oncologist told me that he would be in touch in six weeks or so to see how I’m doing and, I suppose, to set up a schedule for follow-up blood work. I should be getting blood tests every three months or so to ascertain the state of the myeloma proteins in my blood. Once the proteins start increasing, it’s time to make a decision again about chemo. Sheesh.

Whatever, the bottom line (to use a business metaphor) is that I’m getting ever closer, as we all are, to the moment of my final breath. The closer I get the harder it is to deny it. The difference between you and me might be that I’ve been issued my ticket to ride, stamped and ready to go in the form of multiple myeloma.

No, I’m not immune to the lure of death denial. I’m not anxious to die. I don’t have a death wish. In fact, I have a life wish. But wishing and hoping aren’t going to get me past this one. It’s just so hard to fathom being dead although I can see that it would be a relief from American politics.

Lots of people urge me to be positive and/or stay strong. Well, I’m not curled up in a fetal position in a corner of the living room wailing and gnashing my teeth waiting to die. Still, it’s a bit daunting thinking that, like my parents, grandparents, and all ancestors, I will also be relegated to the dustbin of history, and in the not-too-distant future.

Yes, I stay positive. I’m registered for a webinar organized by the Multiple Myeloma Foundation set for this Saturday at 1 PM. I wouldn’t be doing that if I weren’t positive! The webinar is to inform us about the latest treatments for myeloma and the progress that’s being made to find a cure. Yes, some researchers and scientists are actively looking for a cure. Problem is they’ll never find a cure for death.

Yes, I stay strong, whatever that means. Sometimes I just want to scream about the injustice of it all, but I don’t. I stay calm, but I seethe inside quietly with my teeth clenched. Maybe that isn’t staying strong. I don’t know. One thing for sure is that when worse comes to worse, I won’t hesitate to get zonked on morphine. Suffering is highly overrated. I’m not sure what the virtue is in suffering. You tell me. Is there a reward?

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Okay, so now for something completely different. Some of you will know that a couple of weeks ago I got a microscope that I can use in conjunction with my iPhone. I get some great pictures and video with it. I also have a standard lab microscope that is actually more powerful than my Wi-Fi microscope, but it’s not easy getting pictures with it. The pictures below were all taken with the Wi-Fi microscope and my iPhone. The first three images are pretty straightforward. The others not so much. The first image (1) is of a dragonfly wing. The second is a photo of the eye of a tiny fly. Number 3 is a larger image of 2. Image 3 is of the spore sack of a fern. The 5th is much different.

Don’t get grossed out now, but the 5th image is a very enlarged view of a mole on my back! I know…eweeeew. Weird, eh? You might want to keep microscopes away from your body after seeing this. Number 6 looks very flesh like, but it’s a highly enlarged view of a plant part. I can’t remember which plant or which part. Number 7 is…I have no idea. I don’t recall taking this image, but it’s of some plant part. Reminds me that I have to more carefully document these things, not that I’m doing a systematic study of anything. It’s just interesting to do while I wait for my myeloma to return.

I’m finding some great inspiration for abstract paintings here.

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©Roger Albert. All images taken with Wi-Fi Digital Microscope.

59 Perturbatious Times (and wee bugs)

~ Roger JG Albert ~ 4 Comments

So, the last three weeks since my last post have been momentous (for me) because, as I’ve noted before, I was faced with the devil’s choice of carrying on with the chemotherapy that was sapping my mobility, or of putting my chemo into abeyance. It’s been very stressful for me and for my family, especially for Carolyn.

Before I get into my decision and the reasons for it, I just want to say that I’ve had really incredible support from the oncology staff at the hospital, as well as from the palliative care staff, especially Dr. Marie-Clare Hopwood and Adele, one of the nurses at the Centre. Pain is a huge issue and a major hindrance for healing. The challenge for palliative care staff is to manage pain in the face of severe illness.

That’s where I come in. I provide the pain, they provide the relief. Ideally, at least.

Well, I’m pleased to say that in some ways, with certain aspects of my pain, I’m getting some relief with the helpful prescription writing skills that Dr. Hopwood brings to the table. It turns out (and I’ve probably already told you this) that opiates, including hydromorphone, are not much good at attenuating neuropathic pain, that is pain that originates in the nervous system. Most of my pain over the past couple of months has been dominated by neuropathic pain in my back and legs. It turns out the neural systems in my back and legs aren’t doing a great job of controlling the large muscles of my lower body. Fact is, the muscles in my legs dance constantly with fasciculations.* You may experience the odd fasciculation, but my legs are alive with them to the point where my legs have less than ideal control coming from the nerves that are supposed to make them move without us thinking about it, I lose my balance constantly, and use two canes to walk.

How often do you get a house call from a doctor?

Well, Dr. Hopwood and Adele came over to the house a few days ago for a consultation. We all sat on the deck at a proper distance apart and Adele and Dr. Hopwood wore face masks. We talked for quite some time before Dr. Hopwood arrived at a strategy to help with the pain in my back and legs. I won’t get into details, but it doesn’t involve more opiates. I’ve been on the regime that Dr. Hopwood recommended for almost a week now and it’s going well so far. I have other pain issues, but they have to be resolved in other ways. More on that later.

This past Wednesday during a regular consultation with my GP oncologist, Dr. Bakshi, I put it to him that I felt my mobility was being severely compromised and that my quality of life was being significantly eroded, especially in the last two months or so. For instance, over the past couple of months my legs have given way on me four times and I’ve found myself on the ground with no ability to get up. Thankfully, there was always somebody with me to help me get back up.

I told him I was seriously considering abandoning my current course of chemo. I was gratified to find that he was in complete sympathy with me. He said that I had successfully completed more than 80% of my suggested nine cycles of chemotherapy which would have taken me to October 6th. So, I made the decision to put my chemo into abeyance. What does that mean?

Well, it means that I’m off chemo for the foreseeable future. My last blood work shows that my blood is normal with very little paraprotein, good liver and kidney function. Now we just have to wait to see when the myeloma will again haunt my bones, veins, and arteries, because it surely will. It’s just a matter of time. Of course, I still have intense neurological pain and severe weakness in my legs. That won’t go away any time soon, if ever. We just have to wait and see.

*A fasciculation, or muscle twitch, is a spontaneous, involuntary muscle contraction and relaxation, involving fine muscle fibers. They are common, with as much as 70% of people experiencing them. They can be benign, or associated with more serious conditions. When no cause or pathology is identified, they are diagnosed as benign fasciculation syndrome. (Wikipedia)

Now for some wee bugs. I bought a 1000 power microscope on the internet that is pretty cheap but operates in conjunction with an app on my iPhone. It takes photos and videos. I find it fascinating that this little microscope can ‘see’ things I can’t see at all with my naked eye. I may use some of these photos as a basis for art work.

I caught these little guys at very high magnification on the backside of wisteria leaves. I have no idea what they are called. Any idea? I think they’re mites, but ???