I came home today and found the June issue of News from Hope College in the mailbox (online pdf version here). On pages 14 and 15, there’s an interesting story of two recent grads who were roommates – both of whom had to fight cancer. My first reaction – what a crazy coincidence.
My second (more selfish) reaction – what short treatment periods! Three months of chemo and one month of radiation for the girl who had Hodgkin’s lymphoma years ago, and only three rounds of chemo over two months for the other girl. Shit… where do I sign up for that kind of quick cure?
Of course, it’s a little ridiculous to compare scars and see who had/has it harder than anyone else. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that cancer sucks for everyone who gets it, no matter the severity. I can connect with them on a deeper level if they only had a little chemo or were bedridden for months. And chemo treatments vary a lot, so there’s not really a way to know exactly what someone dealt with from such a short story. Maybe they couldn’t even leave the house whereas I can still go to work most days. It’s mostly useless to compare.
But anyway, next week will be my 6th round of chemo, and 12 weeks since I started. I literally cannot even imagine how great it would be to be done right now, after about 3 months. Yet I still have too many more months left. Hopefully October? And then radiation after that? Who knows, my next PET scan isn’t even on the schedule yet. Gah, looks like it’s time to go willfully suffer on the bike again. The rain clouds have cleared. Beats involuntarily suffering on the couch…