Can you hear me now?

In an earlier post (Early Detection Possible?) I talked about losing my voice. I didn't have much volume or energy to talk for many months. I was audible as long as there was no competing noise. So I was still able to communicate with my colleagues in the office, but if I walked out in the street or sat in a restaurant, I couldn't even hear myself talk. I thought it was a side effect of the inhalers I was using. Eventually I discovered that the cancer had spread to my lymph node. The growing tumor in the lymph node was pressing on the nerve that controls the movement of my left vocal cord causing left vocal cord paralysis. The left vocal cord was unable to meet the right one, which also caused me to be breathless when I talked and choke when I swallowed. 


My oncologist said that the paralysis might be permanent, because a nerve is hard to repair once it's been damaged. He sent me to see a specialist to inject a botox-like substance into the left vocal cord. This injection would enlarge the left vocal cord temporarily to meet the right vocal cord. That way I would be able to speak, breath and swallow a little easier. The results were as anticipated. My voice, breathing and swallowing wasn't the way it used to be, but better than without the injection. 


I went for a check up 3 months later, and told the specialist that my voice is gradually coming back, but I didn't have the volume. He numbed my nose and inserted a tiny video camera up my nose and down my throat to check the vocal cord. EEEEEE. AAAAA. He saw slight movement in my left vocal cord. It looked promising. 


A few days ago, I went for my regular 3 month check up and had the video camera down my throat again. EEEEE. AAAAA. My left vocal cord was MOVING! I can have my voice back! The specialist thought everything looked good enough that I didn't have to see him anymore. I couldn't stop smiling as I walked out of his office. 

My Luck

I'm pretty lucky. My treatment is not so bad compared to other patients. When I asked to reschedule my hip radiation time, the technician said she would try, but some times were blocked off for in-patients who get full body radiation... full body radiation. Their entire body gets zapped with radiation. My jaw just dropped. She said it was for folks with leukemia. Even though I just barfed as I'm writing this, I felt like a wimp for being upset about getting radiation for only a small part of my body, when other people have to deal with worse. The radiation team also made the treatment much more pleasant. I wrote them thank you cards for their kindness, light conversations, and constant smiles that really help me though.

Even my immunotherapy treatment is not as bad. For one thing, my current treatment no longer hinders the growth of my hair. So now my hair is growing back after radiation, and quite nicely too. I have a good amount of hair on the sides and back. I still have to wait for the top to grow some more or else I walk out with a reverse mohawk pixie. I can't wait to have a full set of hair and embrace the freedom of no head gear, especially in the summer.  

Guest Post (My Brother) - My Sister's Rock

For this post, I want to talk about my sister’s boyfriend, M. Ever since day one, M has been at my sister’s side unflinching, unwavering as a rock. He is “only” a boyfriend and at any moment, he could have left. But he didn’t, even when my sister is suffering the worst of chemo or bearing the worst of news. His smallest gestures mean the biggest thing to my sister. When she was undergoing periodic injections of Cisplatin, a notoriously rough treatment, she endured extremely terrible bouts of nausea. She became apprehensive of eating anything, fearful that what she ate would promptly be regurgitated. This vomiting wasn’t the vomiting from a stomach flu or from a morning hangover, but a long, continuous, painful, vein-in-the-neck popping hurl over the toilet bowl. The retching was very loud and horrible to hear. I know everyone who was with my sister also felt a knot in the stomach because there wasn’t much to do but to let it happen. M, when this happened, would unfailingly rush to bring a stool so that she could sit while hovering over the toilet bowl. He would have one hand on her back, one hand holding a glass of water. He would memorize how many liters of water she had drank during the day to ensure she didn’t become too dehydrated (which would worsen the nausea) and recall the 15 or so medicines she needed to take and when to take them (both the common and the scientific names). M is the caretaker to my sister that I aspire to be.

My family all knows what M means to my sister. He keeps her happy, a tether to normalcy. My mother, ever the worrier once confided in me, “I’m really worried. What if he leaves her?” My father, ever the tiger dad, who only months ago didn’t think he was good enough for his daughter replied, “I know his heart now. He wouldn’t leave her.” “But what if he does?” “He won't.”

The measure of a man is the loyalty to his woman and by that measure M is a man by a mile.

“In sickness and in health”…. he may have never uttered them in vow, but he has done them in deed.  Sweet words are rarely true, true words are rarely sweet but true actions, the very sweetest.