Disappointment abounds

In a disappointing, albeit not wholly unexpected, turn of events, I did not set off any detectors when I passed through Logan International Airport yesterday afternoon.  As I approached security, I was prepared.  My shoes were in a little tub; I had removed all liquids from my bag; my pockets were free of change.  And I had grabbed a little paper card and stuck it in my back pocket, hoping I would get to use it.  What little card?  The little card I had received five hours earlier at my PET scan, stating this:  "This patient had a Nuclear Medicine Procedure [sic] and may still have small amounts of radiation capable of being detected by radiation monitoring equipment.  The amount of radiation poses no danger to the public and is allowed by NRC Medical use regulations."  In short, I was acceptably radioactive, and I had the card to prove it.

Alas, either those detectors do not, in fact, detect any radiation activity, or the amount of the tracer in my system had diminished enough so as to be undetectable.  Either way, I was disappointed when I sailed through security and on to my gate.  Oh well; maybe next time.

In other news, Cancer-Free!!

Still.  No tumor, blood counts are all normal, no questionable levels of anything in my system.  I was officially taken off of all cancer-related medications, which is so weird, but such a relief.  After two and a half years of so many pills, so many things to remember, I can finally start fully cleansing my system of all those chemicals.  From here on out, I get a PET scan every six months for the next two years, then once a year until 2013, which will be the five-year mark of treatment completion.  Blood work is thrown in there every once in a while, but I can have that done anywhere.  I'll be sticking with Dana-Farber and my doctor in Boston, at least for the time being.  I figure since everything else in my life is so up in the air, it is just easier to know I have to be in Boston every six months, instead of moving All of my records and such to someone new every time I move around.

So that's it for now.  Check back tomorrow or in a few days because I have an important and Long-overdue update on something very exciting.  Hooray!  Okay, peace.

Quick update!

On my way to Boston for my 6-monthly PET/CT scan.  Hopefully still all clear...  Fingers crossed, and if I'm super lucky, I'll be able to drop down to just one medication!  Good luck and happy weekend to everyone.  Go Bears!

Hey, remember that time I used to blog about my life as a cancer survivor?

Yeah, me too.  Good times.  Good times on the internets.  Well, following certain recent events that I will discuss a few lines down, I feel the need to b-log once more.  I am and have been struggling quite a bit lately with who I am and what's next for me.  Now, I recognize that uncertainty and doubt are pretty much the norm for recent college grads, especially these days when there are so few jobs floating around.  Unfortunately, a wrench was thrown into my works three years ago when my body decided it would be cool to go and give itself cancer.

I am, only now, beginning to feel like everything is catching up with me.  Basically, from the day I was diagnosed until I graduated on May 17, 2009, I did not stop.  I did the treatment thing; then I did the school thing; and then I did the Washington, DC thing.  The past three years are a blur.  I feel cheated of my college years, in a sense.  Sometimes I wish I hadn't been stripped of my innocence and invincible attitude.  Sometimes I wish I could have graduated and moved into some tiny apartment somewhere, barely making rent and living on PBRs and Cheerios.  But wishing never did anyone any good, nor does dwelling on what isn't.

This past week I went to Jackson, Wyoming, to climb in the Tetons with a bunch of young adult cancer survivors through an organization called First Descents.  Initially, I had been more interested in the climbing aspect of the trip than the cancer part.  I want to get more involved in climbing, and I figured this would be a good opportunity to climb in some of the most beautiful mountains in the U.S.  And, hey, I had cancer, so I was eligible for this program.  Bonus.  But I wasn't really thinking about the cancer part or what it would mean to spend five days with other young adult survivors.  I certainly didn't realize how inadequate and lost I would feel among 13 or so other people who have all had cancer and who all seemed so much more together than myself.  Some of the other people there were closer to their treatment than I am, but I was the youngest young adult there.  While I didn't feel younger in terms of maturity, I felt like the person with the least direction.

Over the years, I have gotten pretty good at deluding myself into thinking everything is okay.  I realized out in Wyoming that while I am pretty comfortable with myself, I am still not okay with this cancer thing.  This was the first time I have ever been around a bunch of people my own age who actually understand what cancer really looks like, feels like, smells like, is.  What it means to be in your 20s or 30s with cancer.  It was extremely painful for me to have it all brought home so quickly.  With my friends, I can pretend that I was never sick, that everything is okay.  But at camp, it was inescapable.  Right at the point when I was desperately trying to pretend that none of this ever happened, I found myself smack in the middle of it again.

And you know what?  I needed that so badly.  I needed to be with people who understood.  I needed to hear from someone who knows what I am going through that things will work out okay.  Just talking with them gave me hope and a little bit of peace.  The men and women I met out in Wyoming are some of the most amazing, strong people I have ever met.  And they are all just living their lives.  They have made it past diagnosis and treatment and a few are even a couple years removed from it all.  I am so grateful for their shared strength.  

Wyoming was one of the best times I have ever had, between the climbing and the spontaneous dance parties in the middle of a road and the juvenile humor and the laughter.  So much laughter.  I haven't laughed so hard and so truly in a long time.  It is amazing how just a few people can change your perceptions, even if only slightly.  I am still struggling with this whole cancer thing and how much I want to embrace it right now, but I am not as scared or uncertain.  We have all made it this far, and we will just keep on keeping on.  

"People call us renegade cause we like living crazy."

Wyoming is pretty much a photographer's dream.

Andre, aka 007

All of us together on Jenny Lake at the foot of the mountain

Just thought I'd drop in...

Yes, I know, I am technically supposed to be finished with this blog. But I have come to realize that even though the majority of my treatment has ended, cancer is still everywhere in my life. This morning, for example, I opened up the New York Times website, and this was the story that greeted me:

Advances Elusive in the Long Drive to Cure Cancer

I was very impressed with this story. It is honest without being insensitive. Kolata's story echoes what I heard last year at the CALGB conference I spoke at, that foundations and researches are wary of spending money on radical new trials, and progress is being made only incrementally. I had never really thought about, as well, her point that cancer rhetoric focuses on "cures," and "survival rates" and such. It makes sense from both sides though. Of course we focus on the positive aspects of cancer. No one wants to think about dying, and I'm sure no pharmaceutical companies want to advertise their drugs as "only possibly adding a few more months onto your already truncated life." That's just a downer. And yet, it is all a bit delusional, especially the curing cancer pledge. Even I, who had one of the supposedly "curable" cancers, don't believe a cure is possible.

On the other hand, that in no way means we should stop fighting. Last weekend I drove up to Boston for Boston University's first ever Relay for Life. I think eight or nine hundred people showed up, and we raised near $80,000 for the American Cancer Society. The whole premise of Relay is that people spend 12 or 18 hours walking around a track in recognition of the fact that cancer never sleeps. By the end of the weekend, after the all-night event, catching up with my friends, and two eight-hour bus rides to and from Boston, I was exhausted and sick. But I am so glad that I went. It was amazing to me to see so many people all gathered together in support of a single cause. We all want to keep this fight against cancer going.

Like I said, I don't think there is a cure, but there are certainly improvements to be made. If the slightly misleading rhetoric means that more people will change their lifestyles, that's great, but we need to be brave enough to face the reality of death as well. I guess I just hope that we don't lose hope but that we don't get ahead of ourselves either.

And that's my bit. Incidentally, I am healthy and still tumor-free. Follow-up for me now consists of scans and doctor's appointments every three to four months, gradually every six months, then every year or so for however long my doctor feels comfortable. ALSO. Today, TODAY! was my last day of class/work/college. The DC program finished today, which means that I am finished with college. In four years. Who woulda thunk it.

www.ccbinsight.blogspot.com

A brand new year and you know what that means...

Or at least, I hope you know what that means and can please tell me because I have no idea what this new year means for me.  New places; new experiences; new jobs; new relationships; new fears; new stories to share.  

One week from tomorrow will find me excited and probably bewildered in Washington, DC, starting out on whatever adventure the next few months will bring.  This will pretty much be my first time (ever) not really knowing what I'm getting myself into.  This will not be like beginning a new semester of classes, where, yes, the classes may be new, but I generally know how things will go.  I have a vague idea of what I will be doing the next three and a half months: A photography internship where I get to take pictures of and around DC.  An element of my program, the "newsroom," has us students acting as the DC correspondents for a number of small, New England newspapers, reporting and filing stories for publication.  And then we have a class called political reporting, which is about what it sounds like.  This won't be your typical internship/classes study-abroad program.  This is journalism in Washington, DC in the first year of a new and historic and exciting presidency.  This is kind of the beginning of what I really hope is my life after school.

I am scared.  But I am also deliriously excited.  And, oh, hey, I'm also leukemia-free.  tumor-free.  all mass and bad cell-free.  As of December 17, 2008, two years and nine days after my first diagnosis and my last Wednesday living in Boston, all scans were clear and all tumors completely disappeared.  Haha, of course, the universe has never been and probably never will be truly kind to me, and it turned out I actually had pneumonia.  But hey, at least it wasn't cancer...?  I went on antibiotics for a few days, and now I should Finally be all set.  I have a follow-up scan in March, and then another scan every three months for a while, but that is it.  I still have the Fear, but I'm not going to let it run me.  I, instead, am going to start running for real this time.  I am going to bike.  I am going to try and get involved in some sort of outdoors group around DC.  I want to hike!  and kayak on that river that's right down the street from where I will be living.  I will live again without pain or fatigue or the persistent cold that Did Not Go Away.  I will live.  Maybe not as long as some people, definitely longer than others, but I will be alive to see whatever this new year will bring.

This b-log never really became a "blog," per se, in that it never really connected with other blogs or internet sites or activities or interesting nonsenses.  There was very little media, aside from the sporadic photos I put up.  But it served its purpose for me.  It helped me get through two years of chemotherapy and treatment for leukemia and a subsequent face-tumor.  It gave me a channel for my thoughts and hopefully gave everyone reading it some insight into what I've been going through.  I hope these posts have helped illuminate what it's like to be 20, 21, 22 and dealing with cancer treatments.  I cannot say my experience is necessarily similar to anyone else's, because everything that I have felt and experienced and grown from has been unique to me.  That said, I'm sure a lot of what I have gone through is not uncommon for other survivors my age.  So, you know, we're not all wimpy, sad, bald kids to be pitied or misunderstood.  We're just trying to get through our days, the same as everyone else.  It is Hard to be a student and a patient.  Good Lord, was that hard.  But it's just another thing to deal with.  Somehow, I did it.  I'm not sure how, really.  Well, that's not true.  My friends helped a lot.  The b-log helped a lot when I wasn't in school.  But mostly it was my desire and drive to be healthy once more, to live to see better days.  I am positive that that sentiment is something we all possess (or, I hope anyway), and so if you ever find yourself where I was just over two years ago, scared and uncertain and alone with a doctor and a hematologist in some nurse's lounge in some strange and sterile hospital, be strong.  (or if you are in a completely different scenario, that's fine too.  The point:)  Have faith in yourself, because when the shit hits the fan, which it is apt to do, you have to be there for yourself.  And you'll make it through.  Seriously, the bad days can't last forever.  They have to change over at some point.  That's what I tell myself, and I think it's generally true.  So.  Good luck.  Good luck with your tomorrows.  I'm around if anyone wants to say hey or chat or cry or laugh or whatever.  I'm always around.  Thank you all for everything.  Peace, pax, I'm out.

cbridges86@gmail.com

I feel like there was something important I was going to say here....

Oh right.  Two years.  Two years and a whole lot of pain.  Two years and a whole lot of anger, frustration, depression, fatigue, drive, motivation, happiness, life.  Two years and life.  Two years and so much growth I don't think I would recognize the person I was two years ago.  Two years and I am still scared.

I found out I had Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia two years ago, yesterday.  Two years later and it is almost finished.  Two years later and I am sitting in Starbucks, freaking out because I have so much work to do and I don't know how I'm going to get it all done.  So, instead of doing it, I am blog-posting...  hmm.  But no, really.  I am tremendously overwhelmed right now.  I have been completely and necessarily unproductive pretty much all semester.  I just sort of "got by" because I was in too much pain or uncertainty or exhaustion to do anything else.  And now I have two essays, a poetry portfolio, a final project, and a website to complete in 48 hours.  It's funny how the entire semester has caught up with me in the past week.  Last week, too, I spent pretty much all day, every day, working.  I know most of my friends are in the same boat.  We are all so close to finishing up this semester.  It's like we are standing on the edge of a cliff, literally right on the edge, ready to jump and fly, but there is something, a rubber band, a harness, whatever, something is gripping us around our stomachs, squeezing out our air, holding us back.  We can see the end of all of this, but we aren't allowed to touch it yet.  Frustration-central.

And then my final scan is next Wednesday.  I am praying so hard that it is my final scan.  I spent yesterday eating way too many cookies and convincing myself that the tumor isn't actually gone and the headache I have been nursing isn't because I'm tired or over-caffeinated but is a result of the tumor growing back.  Yesterday kind of sucked, actually.  But today is a new day, and I will get all my work finished.  We all will get everything done; it just happens, somehow.  And in terms of my tumor or leukemia, well, all of this happened for a reason.  I don't know what the reason is yet, but I know there is a reason.  There is a purpose behind my still being here.  Two years ago, I could have not gone into the student health center.  I could have finished my semester, gone home thinking I was just tired, could have slept over winter break, could have come back to school, and then who knows what.  Died?  Yeah, I could have died.  I probably would have died.  Funny story though.  I didn't.  I am still here, for better or for worse.  I am going to keep on being here, and whatever happens, will happen.  Life will happen.  Hell, life Is happening.  So that's something.

Finally, shameless plug:  I actually have mostly kind of finished one of my assignments.  My website.  I am putting up the link - again, for better or for worse - in case anyone wants to follow my photography past and my photography future.  I plan on keeping it up and updated while I'm in DC next semester.  Warning: it's still new, so don't judge too hard.  I guess that's about it.  For all of its completely ridiculous and frustrating complications, life is pretty exciting.  I hope everyone can smile about something today.  Peace from my new home that is Starbucks.

(p.s., the date says it's yesterday because I started this post yesterday.  But today, right now is actually Tuesday.  k, thanks.)

people.bu.edu/bridgec