The Next Phase

Wow...I can't believe it's been two weeks since I last posted anything. Time flies when you're having fun...or is it when your Internet is down??? Can't remember...whatever. Yeah so, my Internet has been down for a while and I'm not going to use my work computer for posting to a blog because that's just asking for trouble.

So a lot has happened since I last updated you all. I've been to the hospital or some other medical or dental facility so many times I can't remember all of them. One in particular I do remember quite well, unfortunately. Unfortunate because it was the worst experience of this entire battle with cancer. I'm not kidding--I'd take the surgeries before this. I won't get into the details but suffice it to say that apparently I don't deal with being completely immobilized very well. The good news is that it is over. The bad news is that every day of my radiation therapy is going to be very similar to this experience. If this doesn't teach me to have total control over my mind, then nothing will.

Anyway, that was Wednesday and it was the simulation of what my radiation therapy would look like. They call it a simulation because they go through a little bit of a dry run of a session and map out where the treatment area will be. My treatment area will cover the left side of my neck up to my jawline and down into the chest region. The therapy will happen every Monday through Friday beginning August 3 and stretching through mid-September or about 6.5 weeks.

The side effects will not be pretty but mostly not permanent, thankfully. There is a pretty good chance, however, that I will lose about 25% of my salivary glands. Other things that will happen are a change in taste (not supposed to be permanent), sore throat, mouth sores, skin discoloration, and fatigue. I'm pretty sure there are some other things but I can't remember them at the moment.

Right now, I'm feeling pretty good about the future even as unpleasant as it may be. During my recovery from surgery on June 28th, I began watching the Tour de France (it started on July 2) and watched most, if not all, of every stage since then. I didn't really know much about cycling before I watched the Tour this year, but I've been following Lance's accomplishments ever since he started winning in 1999. His personal story is so unbelievably inspiring that he could have been a professional badminton player and I would have watched! So today was the last day of the Tour, and there was Lance--overall leader by 4 minutes and 40 seconds over Italian Ivan Basso--finishing his professional cycling career on top and in perfect form, winner of 7 Tours de France in a row. Just to have an idea of how big of a deal this is, consider the fact that before Lance there were only three riders who had won 5 Tours. Lance won 7. Consecutively.

It was bittersweet to see him take the podium for the last time today. He's been such an inspiration to me even before I was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year. I would have never dreamed that Lance Armstrong the cancer survivor would have inspired me so much more than Lance Armstrong the cyclist. Throughout my recovery, it's been reassuring to know that he's out there living life to the fullest and living a normal life. It'll be sad to have him gone from the public eye, at least in the context of a cyclist.