My evil twin

Fourth treatment of chemo done! Now to 'enjoy' my side effects for a week or so, recover a few days, and I'm done with my second cycle! Another milestone! (notice the sweet side shave?) It really is all routine by now: Dane drops me off at the oncology day clinic, I happily greet all the nurses and other patients (always gezellig! ), find an open chair and get myself comfortable. The nurses hook the IV up to my PICC line and then over the course of three hours or so, all of the drugs are administered. To pass the time, I mostly look at my phone and text my mother (who always wakes up before the crack of dawn in Philly to keep me company!) and Dane. I try to stomach some lunch from the hospital - it's tasty but my body now associates it with chemo - and I chat with the nurses to practice my Dutch every time they're attending to my frantically beeping infusion pump. I get my PICC line cleaned and redressed at some point during the chemo and once we're all ...

Five weeks into chemotherapy and I think I'm getting the hang of things. All the mystery and fears of cancer treatment have given way to experience and even some confidence. But I'm also staying humble and taking things one day at a time. Chemo shows little mercy. While I'm getting used to the side effects, any moment something new can just pop up. One moment I can be focused and feeling good and the next I can hardly keep my eyes open. Keeps me on my toes and listening to my body! Each treatment has been better than the last. Familiarity goes a long way for that. But so does more drugs. The ' langer afbouwen ' of my anti-nausea medicine (extension from a four- to six-day scheme) has done wonders to avoid a cold turkey dip day. My only other serious complaint that has persisted and worsened each cycle has been a relentless headache that Tylenol wouldn't touch. I brought it up to my hematologist before my third treatment last week. After asking a few questions ...

My second chemo treatment was last Wednesday, April 15, and I'm happy to say it went pretty well. In fact, significantly better than the first time. It helps to be familiar with how things go of course. But even more importantly, the PICC line made the infusion so much more comfortable. I was pretty anxious to get the PICC line installed. It's essentially a catheter that dangles out my left arm and connects up a vein all the way just above my heart. I think I hyper-focused on it as a coping mechanism - something tangible and gross to worry about that's less personal than the cancer in me. But after the disturbing experience searching for suitable veins in my first treatment and the subsequent pains and stiffness in my arm that lasted more than a week (and bruises still to show!), I warmed up to the idea. The insertion procedure was pretty painless. Just a little sting from the anesthesia in my arm. I was laying in the middle of a large operation room with an x-ray over ...

Cycle 1A is in the bag, achter de rug ! Chemotherapy is no longer a menacing cloud of uncertainty; no more need for anxiety or nervousness, just getting through it. It's been a rollercoaster, both easier and worse than I expected at the same time. The side effects were mostly manageable, but very unpleasant and long-lasting.  I'm pleased to say my team at the hospital prepared me reasonably well in terms of being aware of and managing side effects. I was prescribed several anti-nausea medications for the first four days starting each treatment day. Since these medications on top of chemo alone can cause severe constipation, I took preventative magnesium from the beginning. The "A" and the "V" chemo drugs also can cause mean mouth sores, so on top of sucking on ice chips while they were administered, I rinsed my mouth with salt water every couple hours the week following chemo. This kept things pretty bearable! I saw some beginnings of sores in my mout...

Happy April Fools'! It's a bit of a drab year for pranks and jokes given the pandemic (though my heart still skipped a beat when I fell for this article ). On top of that, it was my first day of chemotherapy! Turns out the hospital wasn't pulling a prank on me - the seat and chemotherapy drugs with my name on it were all ready. With my classic Hodgkin's diagnosis, I'm receiving the front-line Hodgkin's treatment: ABVD. ABVD is a four-drug chemotherapy regimen that is extremely effective in wiping out the cancer. The goal is to inhibit cell growth and division. For my normal cells that's not so nice, leading to hair loss and a weakened immune system among other things. But for my cancer cells, it should spell a death warrant. On the bright side, this chemo regimen has been around since the 1960s and has made huge improvements since then. Specifically reducing toxicity and increasing comfort with lots of anti-nausea medications. A cycle of ABVD is one mont...

Nearly two months ago was my 'diagnosis day' and tomorrow I'm finally beginning chemotherapy. What's the hold-up here? Well, two things. First of all, the national cancer center here doesn't treat lymphoma so I needed to move to a new hospital and repeat a lot of things. There are several hospitals in Amsterdam and all of them have hematology departments. In order to improve specialization and reduce redundancy, the cancer center dropped hematology so with my lymphoma diagnosis, I had to go elsewhere for treatment. This meant I needed a new team of specialists reviewing my case and fine tuning the diagnosis and had to repeat several meetings to prepare me for the Hogdkin's treatment that I previously had with a range of specialists to prepare for the treatment for nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Seeing hematologists instead of ENTs was a breath of fresh air. Suddenly all my 'peculiar' symptoms, namely the pain in my lymph nodes from alcohol, were recognize...

I've been assured by many people that the diagnostics part can be the worst part of cancer - mostly the uncertainty of it all. I can hardly imagine that that's the truth but, hey, the thought helps mitigate some anxiety ahead of treatment. After I first went to see my huisarts/GP, it went from zero to 100 real quick and I'm still only beginning to settle down. Monday, January 13 my huisarts called me to come in to see her to discuss the results of my ultrasound the day Friday before. Turned out that it was indeed swollen lymph nodes in my neck and that they had their own blood vessels. I was immediately referred to the ENT doctors at the national cancer institute here in Amsterdam for further investigation. The following Monday began my 'sneldiagnostiek' (fast diagnosis) process at the cancer hospital. Fast is a relative term; in the end it took three weeks to reach a diagnosis but there was a small hiccup along the way. In my intake appointment with the ENT t...