Decision Made

Like the beer add says, Canada has two seasons: Winter and July. We spend the winter months shovelling and freezing and waiting for July when we camp, swim in the lakes and cavort about in shorts with a significantly minimized risk of being snowed on. For our family, summer is no different. It is a time to enjoy the hot weather with family and friends and perhaps a cold beer. We visit a lake or two, get the trailer out for some summer camping and maybe visit the stampede. Nowhere in that list of decidedly warm weather activities does making one's self sick on chemotherapy appear.

Our plans for a summer holiday this year are to spend the last week of July camping and visiting friends in the Okanagan, followed by a two week stint with family and friends at Green Lake in the Caribou region of BC. If ever there was three weeks of activities that made optimal use of our Canadian summer then that three weeks of bliss is it. Doing chemotherapy before or during that time could be done, but would significantly change the flavor of the summer. I would feel like crap which would mean Penny would do all the work. The kids pick up on my chemo sickness as well and are more sedentary and less excitable. In effect, starting chemotherapy now would significantly dampen, if not ruin our summer plans.

In a perfect world, I would never have to do chemo again. Actually, in a perfect world I would never have done chemo or ever have to do chemo. But the reality is, chemotherapy has and will extend my life significantly, so it must be done. There is an option to do a less intensive regimen including only one or two drugs at lower doses but what is the point? I may feel a little better but its not like I'll be running marathons. No, when I go back on chemotherapy it will be as aggressive as I can handle. I'll feel like crap for a few days every two weeks but in the long run, I will live longer and maybe be around to enjoy a few more Canadian Julys.

So the plan now is to stay off chemo until August 15th in order to enjoy our summer plans. At that point I'll probably have another CT scan to establish a base line and start back on the full scale FolFIri chemotherapy. Until then I plan to get out and enjoy the summer.

Funny story: The other night before we sent the kids to Victoria, we invited our neighbors and their kids over for a little play since the kids won't see each other for more than a week. Andrew was really excited about them coming over but he chose an interesting way to show his excitement. He grabbed the nearest book, opened it up, ripped out a random page from the middle, crumpled it up, shoved it in his mouth and ran around the house screaming. It was hard not to react by laughing hysterically. I hope in the years to come we can find some way to direct that explosive excitement towards some useful, less destructive purpose. Like running or weight lifting.