Bulldozer00's Blog

Wow! I just noticed that I haven’t posted anything on this god forsaken blog in almost three months. That’s a far cry from when I accepted WordPress.com’s “Post a Day” challenge waaaaay back in 2011. Being a total blowhard back then, I easily conquered the challenge and spewed some verbal diarrhea up on here every single day for the entire year. If you’re bored to tears (or you’re so weird that I wish you weren’t reading this blog), you can fact-check me by clicking on the “postaday2011” tag on this page and reading every post. 🙂

I’m stunned and thrilled to report to you that I recently “celebrated” my 3 year cancerversary 2 months ago. As you might guess, I’m quite a statistical outlier for a stage 4 lung cancer survivor. Did you know that lung cancer kills more people per year than breast, colon, and prostate cancer combined? Yikes!

My first two years of doing battle with the “emperor of all maladies” were a breeze compared to this last year. I’ve been feeling a relatively slow, but sure, decline in my physical and mental well-being over the last 12 months.

Physically, the standard chemo (Carboplatin/Taxol/Avastin), brain radiation (CyberKnife), targeted chemo (Gilotrif), and immunotherapy (40+ Opdivo infusions) treatments have killed my thyroid and severely limited my mobility. The peripheral neuropathy in both of my feet, my right leg, and (most recently) my mouth has been getting worse.  The numbness is starting to creep up further beyond my toes and higher on my right leg. The “tingling” is morphing into “hot” pain. It feels like someone is slowly pulling up a stocking from my toes to my thigh.

Mentally, I’m feeling both anxious and exhausted more often. I’m finding it impossible to latch on to a new topic and perform a sustained, deep dive to learn more about it and revel in the warmth of a new understanding. And of course, it’s getting very tiring holding back those cancerous thoughts just chomping at the bit to burst through the door.

But hey, enough of the whining…. let’s have some fun while we still got time….