Clockworks

By mentioning that I was interested in "how the clock works" with regards to the drugs, etc. in this process, I was the recipient of a comment on yesterday's blog from someone employed in the biopharma industry. When I tracked the geographic location of the comment, I learned they were from Australia. I'll leave it at that as to honor their request for anonymity.

At times, I don't feel like posting anything to the blog because I feel it can come across as a little "it's all about me." I've heard it said that the most boring speech is one that focus on stories about the person delivering the speech. That's how I feel about this blog sometimes. However, when I learn that my blog has been read for use in medical research, that's pretty cool and I'll continue with it.

I will share some of my own "clockworks" with you. I've mentioned the "what ifs" in the past and I'll detail some of them for you here and now.

1) "Did I make the right decisions last year when this all started?"
1) "What if there is still active cancer after the next set of scans?"
2) "What if there are complications from any of the drugs used in my treatment, either immediate or years down the road?"

Those questions have been the primary focus of my attention the past few weeks. I will tell you that I am pretty resolute with my answer to #1 and I will go into the details of that on tomorrow's post when I introduce you to Barbara Ehrenreich. You can introduce yourself to her in advance by going to The Daily Show website and watch her interview.

I have asked several of the medical caregiver folks if it's normal to be asking these questions and they have confirmed that it's part of the process. They also said that if the questions start to be too overwhelming, that I should seek help in processing them.

The impact of the questions on me personally is what I mentioned the other day when describing the loss of energy in the 10K race. It's also the same as a clock running down and needing to be rewound. I go back and revisit some of the blog posts from last year and consider the resolution and energy I had about kicking alien butt when it all began. Even though there has been great success to date, my own personal mental energy will wane sometimes as the scan results date approaches. It's up to me to choose to rewind the clock.

Let me share a comment from one of the nurses at MCV who I truly respected because of her skill and because of the following statement.

I was sharing my concern with her about complications down the road.

She replied, "Oh Greg, don't let that bother you. By the time those things could start happening, you'll be old enough to die anyway."

Think what you want about that statement. It earned my full stamp of approval and also helped wind the clock.