Chasing Rabbits

In this weeks installment of Fishrocks, the Blog, my plan is to keep it a little lighter. The last few blogs have been kinda deep, with all kinds of angst and crying and carrying on. This whole cancer thing is serious enough without being so serious, so let’s get this thing started with how my week went.

First off, the Xtandi thing. I am now a good three weeks into treatments, so the side effects are becoming pretty evident. How am I doing? This is how I’m doing.

I’m sorry

The editors and producers of this blog would like to formally apologize for the writer of this blog. So, to the wife, kids, extended family, co-workers, readers, and anyone else that comes into the orbit of said writer, we’re sorry. And that includes the guy who cut him off in traffic yesterday whom immediately incurred the wrath of the writer and was the recipient of a vigorous two middle finger salute, which devolved into shouting at the offending party the following words. “NICE DRIVING A**HOLE. OH, AN MSU BUMPER STICKER. OF COURSE! LEARN HOW TO DRIVE YOU FRICKIN SPARTY!” Except the F word in question was not frickin. He’s been a little tired lately.

Restless legs

One of the new lovely side effects has been this thing called “restless leg syndrome” which I thought was a kind of a joke malady. It’s no joke. It’s the latest thing keeping me awake. So, not only does the Xtandi make me tired, it’s also keeping me awake. Excellent! I asked my nurse if restless leg syndrome was a possible side effect of the drug, and, after a little investigation, turns out from 1 to 10% of Xtandi users are effected by this particular affliction. Woohoo! I win the side effects lottery again!

Speaking of the Spartans, good luck on going forward in the rest of the tournament. Hopefully Saint Tom will bring you back to the promised land of the Final Four, if he doesn’t murder a couple of freshman guards in the process. Seriously, he’s a great coach, but wow, chill a little, dude. Is he on Xtandi? That behavior looks familiar.

I might be a little bitter right now because I am writing this after a horrible Michigan loss. 1 for 19 from behind the arc will not get the job done. Or, maybe it’s because I saw this bumper sticker in my neighborhood.

Spartans Will.

I was totally triggered by this. This seems unnecessarily violent to me. I felt violated. Although, when you think about it, this would be a very bad idea. Not just kicking a Michigan Wolverine, who would immediately call his dad, the lawyer, and slap an injunction on your ass, but also kicking the actual animal seems like a bad idea to me. Those things are nasty, have big claws and teeth, and are rather ill tempered. If you kicked an actual wolverine, you might not get your foot back.

My Xtandi script comes in two week doses now. I don’t wear gloves when I take them. Seems kind of weird to me to take care to handle them when I put them in my mouth and swallow them. And, hey! It’s baseball season! Go Tigers!!

In other Xtandi news, I am getting this wonderful wonder drug for free from my oncologist’s office. I get two weeks worth of pills from the pharmacist at the office, and all I have to do to get them is go down there and confess to the nurse about any Xtandi sins I may have committed.

Nurse- How are you feeling, Dan?

Me- I’m doing pretty well. Well, except that I’m REALLY snarky and sarcastic most of the time and my eyes roll back in my head so much I can draw you a picture of my cerebral cortex and my wife is wondering if you can give me something that will calm that down and make me easier to live with. Oh, and I almost killed a Spartan fan last night. And the pills that I’m taking to help me sleep are giving me weird dreams. I had a dream where my 90 year old father was doing backflips on the beach. Not sure what to do with that. Oh yeah, apparently my legs keep moving while I sleep, so me and Zoey are chasing rabbits all night long. Hey, “Chasing Rabbits” sounds like a great blog name. Other than than, everything’s just ducky.

Nurse-(staring at me in horror) Uh, I’m gonna go check with the pharmacist and see if your pills are ready. (Runs out of the room)

Cancer costs

Getting my pills for free is a really great thing. It’s one of the few good stories I have about the life crippling expenses of being a cancer patient. I want to write a blog about the monetary costs of cancer, but not this week. I don’t want to get into the politics of it, I just want to tell you a couple of stories about how crazy the costs can be. I would also like to hear from you. If you are a survivor or a caregiver with a interesting story about the expense of all this stuff, I would like to hear it. You can comment in the comment section of this blog, you can comment on Facebook, or, if you want to keep your story private, email me at coledude62@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you. This is an aspect of the whole cancer journey that doesn’t get talked about much.

Hair update

In hair news, my hair is still amazing and full and awesome. But I did discover an unintended consequence of having an incredible coiffure. After showering and getting dressed and doing random things around the house, I realized I had to go to the store for something. After getting in my car, I checked my look in the mirror. Yikes! I had neglected to do any type of combing or styling before leaving the house, and my hair was sticking straight up and curling over like a wave ready to crash onto a reef. I tried to knock it down a little with my hands, but to no avail, it kept sticking straight up like I just escaped from a psycho ward. Pretty embarrassing.

I told this story to my friend Mike at work, and he suggested that I might have looked like Kramer from Seinfeld. I thought, maybe, but that wasn’t quite right. I also thought of Jim Ignitowski from the show Taxi, which was closer, and then being the history nerd that I am, I thought of this guy.

John C. Calhoun. POS!

Good ol’ Senator John C. Calhoun, Democrat, South Carolina. He was also the 7th Vice President of these United States. Wow, that is an intense, scary, completely unhinged look. By the way, it’s totally fine to make fun of John C. Calhoun. He was a slave owning racist who wanted slavery to continue in the United States forever. Scumbag. But that hair! That is NOT a look I want to emulate. I have to make sure I do a little hair maintenance before I walk out the door.

Well, that’s my update for this week. Enjoy the spring weather, go Tigers, go Green, (I really mean that, I want the Big Ten to do well) and have a wonderful weekend.

Thanks for reading.

Peace