2002-08-28

1:09 p.m.

I don't race bicycles at the moment but after I read Lance Armstrong's book during my too-long hospital stay I became obsessed with making sure my treatment doesn't erase any possibility of me and Olympics 2004 or whatever.

See Lance�s doctor told him that the protocol chemo for his particular cancer involved a drug called "Bleomycin". Bleo is very toxic to the lungs and no doctor or researcher really knows why. They do know that it does a nice job of mucking up cancer cells so yeah, I guess there is a life saving benefit to consider. Lance�s doctors told him he might want to look at other chemo options since his lungs were his livelihood.

I get four different drugs for my chemo cocktail and one of them is Bleo. I had my sixth treatment in the hospital two Friday�s ago but the whole time I watched the bleo drip down the IV I saw my lungs scarring up. I thought of Lance and the Tour de France. I didn�t see any of the race on television but I still thought about it and it seemed lonely without me.

My new obsession led me to call my doctor out of his rounds at the hospital. I didn�t mention Lance Armstrong but I said I had a "friend" who was concerned about the Bleomycin. I told him that I needed to make sure my lungs were in the same condition as they were pre-cancer (minus the 5 by 6 cm tumor pressing on the right one). Dr B assured me that as long as I didn�t smoke my lungs would most likely be fine. To ease my fears he offered to request a pulmonary function test. That made me feel much better. However now I have to go run around to pick up the paperwork and schedule the thing.

My irrational fears are so time consuming. To be fair to myself I must say it is hard to distinguish between rational and not-so-rational after all this cancer business. Every twinge and twitch could be my next serious complication. Nevertheless, I am going to have to limit my obsessions to a few a week since school starts next Tuesday.

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