Part 17
"The Date Is Set"

I was just about done with my chemotherapy treatment now. Week 12 was finally rolling up and I was excited to take a break from this mess. We met with Dr. Williams to discuss possible dates or the surgery. Yes, I needed to have open chest surgery. The chemotherapy had shrunken “The Mass” considerably, but it was still the size of a large orange. I also still had a few cancer cells left in my body. Surgery was my last step. After a few day we finally came up with a date, November 10, 1998. I was to have the surgery in Seattle at Virginia Mason. That was the only place that had surgeons who had seen my specific type of tumor before.

So this was going to be it. November 10th was going to be “my day”. That was still over a month and a half away. That gave me about 50 days to psyche myself up over it. Believe me, you do count the days. At least I would get to live a normal life for a little bit.

My last week of chemotherapy was the worst. I threw up more in that week than I did in any of the previous weeks. I’m not sure if this was because I was sicker, or simply because of the knowledge of my “judgement day”. In either case, I was barfing more that a bulimic person on Thanksgiving. My parents were constantly reminding me that, “all we have to do is make it through this week. Then you will be all done.” Yes, that was true, but the week went by really, REALLY slow.

I eventually made it through the week. When I was finally done I said my good-byes to the nurses over there. Even they were just a bunch of middle age ladies, those nurses were my best friends at the time and were always there to empty my “orange juice container” full of pee, or help me reach my “throw up” bucket when the time was right. Unlike most good-byes, I told them that “I hope I never see you again.” They replied, “I hope I never see you in here again either.” With that, I was gone. Time to get back into the flow of things…

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