Epilogue

I used to read a lot of cancer blogs on the internet and many of them ended suddenly. Everything was going fine and then there would be no more posts. I used to wonder what happened to these people. Shake my head and think 'those poor bastards, couldn't even make it to the keyboard before cancer felled them in their tracks'. I now realize people stop writing about cancer well, because it's boring to write about cancer when you don't have it anymore. I'll keep this blog up in case someone stumbles across it and finds it amusing or useful. I'll update it if anything bad happens with my health, but I think I'll move on to new projects. I'm planning on writing a book on quantum physics this summer that's going to be a real page turner.

I had my post treatment scan this week - one month after the end of chemo. I opted for an MRI scan (Mike Resonance Imaging) since I was beginning to be concerned about the number of CT scans I had received. CT scans dump a lot of radiation into you, where MRI doesn't. There are studies showing an increased risk of developing further cancers down the line from too many CT scans, so if the option is there I would go for the MRI, at least for routine monitoring. The drawback with MRI is that it takes longer, and is louder. You have to wear earplugs and there is loud repetitive banging. Having gone through a stage of being really into minimal German techno I didn't mind this too much, but I could see how it could annoy some people.

Anyways, here are two images they took. Look at my head! Amazing. In the top view picture you can see my brain, looking foldy and clever. There is also something heart shaped in the middle. I don't think it's my heart, but it's kind of cute. You're alright brain.

The next one is the important one. It shows my neck in profile, with no lumpy lymph nodes to worry about. It kind of looks like me too, if I was a backup dancer in that Robbie Williams video where he takes all his skin off. God I love that video. 

So I've been given the all clear by my doctors. We've decided on a monitoring plan - no more scans unless we're worried about something, such as unexplained lumps or night sweats or weight loss. Blood tests every three months, and keep an eye on my lymph nodes and general health. I still have a lot of issues from the chemo - neuropathy, dried out skin, thinned out hair etc. but considering I went 12 rounds in the ring with that shit I feel pretty good. 

I went out for coffee with a friend the other week and she asked me how cancer would change my life. I thought about this for a while. I've read about people who descend into depression after cancer. I've read about people who quit their jobs to reduce stress, people who become vegan and give up alcohol, people who find God and people whose relationships implode. Me? I'm changing nothing. Maybe try to eat more fresh veg and take a few more vacations. But in terms of my friends, my job, my lifestyle, I love all of it. From the very beginning I've understood that Hodgkin's lymphoma is a result of very, very bad luck and is likely not related in anyway to lifestyle choices. So I'll continue to work hard doing a job I enjoy, and to travel like crazy. I'll take ill-advised whitewater canoe trips in bear country. I'll remain ambivalent about bearded sky-wizards. I'll still enjoy good food and good wine with my friends and basically live my life the way I want to.  Does that sound arrogant? Probably. But if I change who I am then cancer wins, right?

Chemotherapy Round 12: The Grande Finale

Well now, that's done with then. Six months of fortnightly injections of cytotoxic chemicals. Hair loss, a blood infection, a hospital stay, a less-than-expected amount of vom. 8 pounds of gained steroids weight. Every episode of Mad Men, Father Ted and Black Books. 100 levels of angry birds.

I actually feel a bit strange about the whole thing ending. On one hand, chemo was awful, but at least I knew that drugs were doing bad things to the cancer. Now, the situation is a bit like when America gets involved in some foreign war and then decides to leave and nobody is really sure what's going to happen. Chemo completed, and we're now handing over control of defences to my immune system. Except we all know how well that turned out last time. I'm expecting it will take a few weeks for the full implications of all of this to sink in.

The final infusion was actually a bit anticlimatic. I got the drugs, said goodbyes and thank-you's to all of the nurses. Shook my doctor's hand and made plans to see him in three months. Walked home, had some ice cream and watched Masterchef before getting an early night. All a bit ho-hum really. I mean, this surely is a momentous occasion is someone's life isn't it? The end of 6 months of feeling like crap all the time? I think anyone who finishes a full round of chemo deserves a medal or a certificate or something to hang on our walls. 

Back in school in Canada, every student in gym class used to get awards as part of the government sponsored fitness ParticipACTION program. Bronze, silver, gold or excellence depending on your scores on various athletics tests. I always got bronze because I sucked at climbing ropes and kicking balls and running fast, but at least you got a little badge you could take home and put on your fridge. It added to the sense of achievement of it all. Anyways, I'm awarding myself the medal of excellence for chemo survivorship. It's not really in the spirit of the ParticipACTION program, since I let my gym membership lapse during chemo and spent a lot of time sleeping on the couch, but I'm sure Canadian fitness greats Joanne Mcleod and Hal Johnson would be okay with it.

Tiger, tiger

Recently, I have developed stripes. Three of them, about 10 cm long across my right bicep. They are dark streaks of skin made extra visible by my pasty white British-ized arms. I find this most interesting. As the good people at the  lymphoma forum have pointed out, this is probably a side effect of one of the chemo drugs, Bleomycin, which is the one that can also screw up your lungs. Turning into a human tiger is probably my favourite chemo side effect so far, easily ahead of eyebrow loss or the shits. 

My new stripes remind me of a cartoon I used to watch on television when I was growing up called Thundercats. I definitely wanted to be part of the Thundercats team. Maybe not the leader Lion-o, since he had stupid hair. But I figured I would settle for being one of the minor characters, maybe Panthro or Tygra. Anything in order to get to spend time with Cheetara, whose costume was in hindsight perhaps a bit risque for a Saturday morning children's cartoon. Even at the age of 8, I knew that Cheetara was girlfriend material. I was a little unclear what one got up to with a girlfriend, but whatever it was she was the one to get up to it with. I'm dedicating my chemo tiger bicep to Cheetara.

Anyways, one more chemo treatment to go. Peripheral neuropathy is still there, but I've been taking Glutamine supplements on the suggestion of one of the readers.  Hopefully I'll start to see some improvement.

Chemotherapy Round 11: The Agony Aunt update

I just figured out that Blogger allows you to see the search terms people have typed in to Google that lead them to click through to your site. I went down the list and there are quite a few questions that I'm afraid my blog lacks answers to. I'm sorry I didn't hold the information you were looking for. 

However today chemo number 11 went alright, which puts me in a charitable mood. My toenails are turning black and one is falling off, but if I were in their position I'd be knackered too. Can't blame them. Go join the nose hair and the missing bits of my eyebrows. I release you. My doctor and I decided to reduce the dose of the Vinblastine to 50% of normal since the neuropathy is getting worse. Hopefully this will sort things out. 

Anyways, this post is all about righting wrongs, so I've gone down the list of failed Google search terms and I'll try my best to answer your questions.

"Does a guy like you when he teases when friends are not around?"

I know where you are coming from on this. Back in grade 5 there was this girl who I think had a crush on me, and she showed it by kicking me very hard in the nuts. So hard I couldn't really stand up or breathe for some time. I just lay there thinking that maybe this is what death was like. Anyways, even if I did fancy her the massive impact to my crotch put me well off of her. So to answer your question, a little bit of teasing could mean he's into you, but if he kicks you or says your thighs look fat you should just run the other way.

"Are you feeling punk?"

Yes. Every day. Even though I now wear sensible shoes and collared shirts to work, I retain my punk spirit. I just took a great big gob in the face of cancer. You can't get much more punk than that.

"Should emaciated elderly woman take chemo?"

My guess is that this is the sort of question your should probably ask your doctor instead of Google. But if I were to go out on a limb, I would say go for it. Chemo made me feel old, and since you are already elderly you will probably just feel normal. Also, chemo made me put on 5 pounds which would help you be less emaciated. Ask for extra steroids and eat lots of bread.

"mediumtimes.blogspot.com?"

Well done. This is a good term to search for in Google if you want to find my blog.

"Spock radiation poisoning"

I feel your pain. I don't mean to ruin the plot of "Wrath of Khan" but Spock essentially melts from the inside out. I know it sucks, but just watch "Search for Spock" and you'll see everything turns out okay. He rises from the dead, a little bit like Jesus but with less beard and more ears.

Right. Job done. I'm off for an early night - only one more chemotherapy session left and I'm done treatment. Seems strange to think about.

Cutbacks

In this era of austerity, cutbacks are everywhere you look. Where I live the government is gutting higher education, reducing funding to social programs, and generally wrecking society in a ham-fisted and ill-thought out way. In a move of solidarity my body has decided to embrace this spirit of thrift by cutting back on eyebrows by 50%. 

Not to worry though friends. I found a website that sells replacement eyebrows to cancer patients made with real human hair. For only $45! This poses a number of interesting questions. Where, for instance, does the raw material come from? Does it really cost $45 to make a pair of eyebrows? And how would it feel having someone else's man hair stuck to your forehead? As you can see I've tried them out, and I think you'll agree they are highly realistic, probably an improvement over the ones I used to have. I think I'll invest in a few pairs post-cancer, you know, for those special occasions.

Ain't no mountain high enough

In an ill-conceived burst of energy I hiked up a mountain in Wales on the weekend. The big sort where you need to use your hands to pull yourself to the peak, all the while contemplating how fractured your spine would be if you fell. There is nothing like risking life and limb to make you appreciate how grateful you are for not dying from cancer. I know that logic sounds twisted but it works in my head. It was great to do something strenuous and physical, and I was surprised how my strength is slowly returning. It would have been impossible to do that sort of thing a few treatments in, so I guess my body is getting to used to the chemo. In a strange coincidence it turns out my oncologist has booked a trip to hike exactly the same mountain with his tennis buddies. He says he'll use my example to motivate/tease any of his friends who are lagging behind on the climb. 

I had chemo number 10 yesterday, and it went pretty smoothly. My neuropathy (nerve damage in the fingertips) is becoming more of an issue and we're considering dropping the dose a little. I've been told it's getting to the point where it may become permanent, and I could lose some fine motor skills. A life being unable to incessantly text and play angry birds is not worth considering. Also, I'd struggle with doing up the buttons on my shirt and so would have to go around dressed like Tom Selleck most of the time. 

The C word

Lately I've been noticing how people tend to avoid using the word cancer around me. Why is this? They ask 'how is your health?' or 'how is your medical condition?' Friends, I'm fairly certain that saying cancer doesn't give you cancer. You're not going to hurt my feelings either. It's not like I don't think about cancer all day, every day as it is, so you won't unintentionally remind me that I'm sick. "OMG - did you just say cancer?! Great, thanks. I totally forgot that I have that. Jerk." It's perfectly okay to talk to me about cancer, and you can use that word as a noun, adjective and possibly even a verb if you are clever enough.

Anyways, yesterday was chemo treatment 9. Three more to go after this. You know what's a really weird side effect of chemo? Ultra vivid dreams. Dreams so realistic you wake up and are shocked to find you're not actually leading a convoy of escaped zoo animals through London to freedom or, as admittedly improbable as it sounds, you are not actually making out with Scarlett Johansson in your parent's backyard. If you are getting chemo and are experiencing this side effect I would strongly recommend that you do not watch 'The Road' before bedtime because that is going to guarantee a pretty restless night.  

Are you feeling lucky, punk?

Alright. Decision has been made. I met with the radiologist to discuss getting radiotherapy to mop up any extra cancer cells that might still be floating around. We laughed, we joked, but mostly we talked about dying. Getting radiation reduces the chance that the cancer comes back. With the chemo I've already had, plus one month of radiation treatment, I stand a 94% of being Hodgkin's free, forever. Nice. The drawback is that I have a fair size mediastinal mass close to my coronary arteries - in layman's terms that means the monkey face bastards have set up shop right next to the ol' blood pumper. Even though modern radiation treatments are pretty targeted, I would still receive a significant dose to my area near my heart, as well as to the blood vessels in my neck. This means a greatly increased risk of heart disease and stroke later in life, as well as a considerable risk of secondary cancer in the lungs from the radiation. It also means probably losing my thyroid gland. I'm not really sure what this does but it must be important. Ronaldo has a messed thyroid and it made him fat, so much so that the fans started shouting 'el Gordo' at him. Poor Ronaldo.

Avoiding the radiation means going for another 4 treatments of chemo, and the risk of a relapse goes up, to 14%.  It's a tough call really, should I accept a small increase in risk now for a more healthy outlook 20 years down the road? How are you supposed to make these sorts of choices at 35 years old? I'd much rather be thinking about physics, or sandwiches. I asked the radiologist for advice and he quoted Dirty Harry to me. "Are you feeling lucky, punk?" I suppose I am, since I decided to skip the rads and go with the chemo. 86% seems like a pretty good gamble, but I guess only time will tell if I got this one right.

Chemotherapy round 8: We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?

I had round eight of my chemotherapy today and everything was okay. No weird reactions. No overnight hospital stay. The french onion soup they gave me was terrible, but I can live with that. 

Anyways, I've been doing lots of research into radiation versus no radiation for early stage Hodgkin's. I have to give Dr. Follows the decision about my treatment by next week. It's a tough one. I haven't made up my mind yet but I did stumble across this amazing story about a Russian physicist who stuck his head in particle accelerator. I've always wanted to know what this does to you, and I salute you my Russian colleague. Apparently his brain was exposed to about 200,000 rads - you can see where the beam entered near his nose and exited out the back of his head in the picture. As a comparison, a chest x-ray gives you about 0.001 rad, and usually 500-600 rad is considered fatal. Although some of his skin fell off, and he suffers seizures, he managed to make a full recovery and is still alive 25 years later! The interesting thing is that the side of his face where the radiation beam travelled through hasn't aged! How cool is that? New fad celebrity facial treatment?

Chemotherapy Round 7: WTF?

So last week I went in for round 7 of chemo. I figure I'm a pro at this by now. I say "hi" to the nurses, help myself to the complimentary tea and biscuits, and take my favorite chemo recliner by the window. "Bring on the poison sacs" I say, "I've got a 3:00 meeting that I need to make and time, she is a wastin'." Friends, let me tell you, that kind of attitude earns you a fistful of comeuppance in cancer land.

About 30 seconds after leaving the ward I started shivering like an epileptic at a Baptist sermon. I figure this means I probably just need more tea, but I can't hold the cup and saucer still and soon caffeinated beverage is flying everywhere. The nurses make me lie down and within 20 minutes my temperature shoots up to 41 C and my heart rate to 120 bpm. At this point I realize that I'm not feeling so good. The doctors come in, have a look and then have a hushed conversation in the hallway. I don't like it when they talk about me behind my back like this as it hurts my feelings. The decision is made to hospitalize me and inject me with everything they have. I think they they just ransacked the medicine storeroom and took one of whatever was there. I had steroids, antibiotics, antihistamines and then more antibiotics. They kept waking me up every two hours to take my temperature, blood pressure and stick things in me. After a pretty miserable night the doctor comes in and tells me they don't really know what happened, but I seem alright now so I can go home.

I've learned two things from this. First, chemo should not be underestimated or it will get angry. Second, once you get Night Fever by the Bee Gees into your head it will take you FOREVER to get it out.

The power of positive thinking

In my corner of the world spring is just about here. Flowers are blooming, the grass is green, the days are longer. So maybe it's time to think positive. I mean cancer can't be all bad, right? Cup half full and clouds with silver lining and whatnot. In honor of spring and optimistic thinking, I'm making a list of all the benefits of having cancer.

1. Save money on haircuts. Since starting chemo I've been losing increasing amounts of hair. I used to go to a nice London salon where surly girls with asymmetric hair styles give you a latte with your haircut. Last month I went to the old guy who cuts your hair for a tenner. One style fits all. I figure I've saved like £80 since getting Hodgkin's! Hair is overrated anyways.
2. No shaving hassles. For some reason my beard is growing at about 1/3 the normal rate lately so I don't have to shave nearly as much as I used to. It's probably the same thing with lady hair I would guess. Shaving is one of life's little annoyances that you get to avoid with cancer.
3. You get lots of nice presents. Since getting cancer people have given me lots of nice things. I've got a new blanket, a tea towel with the periodic table on it, and a nice bowl handmade by French monks. What a great haul! Top tip: Try to plan your cancer away from your birthday or Christmas, otherwise people will tend to "double up" and combine gifts. 
4. Guilt free slacking. Feeling nauseous is a bad thing, but surely this is outweighed by the fact that you can laze around without feeling like you should be doing something productive? I mean, getting rest is what the doctor told you to do, right? For instance while you're all working tomorrow, I'll be sitting on my couch catching up on episodes of the cultural car wreck that is my big fat gypsy wedding. Jealous much?
5. The ultimate excuse. Having cancer gives you the ultimate, airtight, invincible excuse. It's like dropping an atomic bomb all over an argument. Big work deadline coming up? Social occasion you really don't want to go to? Fuck it. Tell them you have cancer. Who can argue with that? Note that you shouldn't abuse this awesome power. For instance "how about you do the dishes tonight? I have cancer" might get the dishes done but it's not going to win you a lot of friends. 

Chemotherapy Round 6: Long live the drugs!!!!!

 This blog post is brought to you by my friends, the drugs. Drugs are pretty great at making you feel better. Thank you Dexamethasone for your four daily tablets of love. Massive props go out to Omprezole, for taking care of the heartburn. Nuff respect also to Domperidone, or as I like to call it, "the champagne of anti-emetics". But the biggest shout out goes to Ondansetron, an anti sickness tablet that touches you right on your vagus and makes your medulla oblongata forget to tell you that you really need to projectile vomit. 

How do pharmaceutical companies come up with these names you ask? From science? And why does my anti nausea pill sound like an eyeliner wearing, ennui-filled electro band from Shoreditch? These are good questions I spent much time contemplating while lying on the couch this week. As far as I can tell, this is how it must have gone down at the drug company:

Scientist: "We've discovered a powerful new anti sickness drug that will greatly improve the lives of lymphoma patients undergoing chemotherapy."

Marketing: "Great. We will make lots of money now. What is it called?"

Scientist: "(RS)-9-methyl-3-[(2-methyl-1H-imidazol-1-yl)methyl]-2,3-dihydro-1H-carbazol-4(9H)-one"

Marketing: "Needs a catchier name. What is the target market for cancer these days?"

Scientist: "Hodgkin's lymphoma often strikes young adults, between the ages of 18-35."

Marketing: "Perfect. The kids these days are into dance music. We'll called it Ondance."

Scientist: "I think dance is spelled with an 's'. Also, if you add tron to the end we can tap into that 80's retro movie vibe."

Marketing: "Killer."

What would Spock do (WWSD)?

A colleague visiting from Japan brought me a nice single malt whisky this week, which is very timely since my whisky collection took a serious and unforeseen hit a few months back. I'll tell you how it happened, since you asked. 

Have you ever wondered what you would do if you were told you might only have a few months to live?  I'll bet you think you'd hire a boat in the Caribbean and sail off into the sunset drinking vintage champagne to a soundtrack  by Hall and Oates,  toasting the good times with all your friends around you. Or possibly you're one of those people that sees themselves finally getting around to finishing Finnegan's Wake or War and Peace? Or maybe finding a quiet mountaintop and meditating on the meaning of life is more your thing? I thought along these lines until November, when my doctors first suspected cancer and I went for a biopsy of one the lumps in my neck. The long conversation with the oncologist went basically like this: 

Doctor: "Well, we're almost certain it's cancer and we've taken some samples of the tumor in your neck."

Me: "This makes me feel unhappy. How bad is it?"

Doctor:  "Well, it's either Lymphoma, which is fully treatable in about 80% of cases, or lung cancer which has metastasized to your lymphatic system, giving you, oh, about 3-6 months. We'll get back to you soonish with the results. Have a great weekend!"

The reality is that when I was actually faced with that sort of situation, I ordered out for pizza, cracked open several prized bottles of whisky and proceeded to get blindingly drunk. Channel 4 was showing an excellent string of 80's movies. Top Gun, Breakfast Club, Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan. The one thing that really sticks out in my mind from that hazy weekend was the scene in Wrath of Khan where Spock saves the Enterprise but dies of radiation poisoning in the reactor room. This made captain Kirk and I very sad. I have a meeting scheduled with a radiologist this week to discuss irradiating my chest and neck with high energy x-rays and I'm wondering if Spock is trying to tell me something here.  And yes, cancer does make you a little bit crazy.

Dr. Mike: now 99.99 % cancer free.

I had my mid-treatment PET/CT scan this week and it came back good. Real good. You can see the before and after scans in the picture. Not a trace of cancer at all. All the tumors seemed to have melted away! What's really neat is that now that the tumors are gone you can see some other organs like the kidneys and liver on the scan, since the tumors 'outshone' the signal from them before. I had no idea livers were so big. Gross. You can also see the awesome sock/Toms/hospital gown/hairy man leg combo I sported to the scan.

Does this mean I'm cured of cancer? No. Cue the math. The detection limit of a PET scan is about 10^6 cells, so it's likely I still have on the order of 1 million cancer cells running around my body. Based on my initial scan and the relative percentage of cancer cells in a Hodgkin's tumor, I calculate that I started off with something like 10^10 cancerous cells. This means that after 4 treatments of ABVD chemotherapy we've killed off (1-1,000,000/10,000,000,000) X 100% = 99.99% of the monkey faced bastards. Amazing!

Where to go from here? I'm not in the clear yet since there is still a chance I'll relapse at some point, but things are going as well as they can. I'm down for at least 4 more treatments of ABVD chemo to mop up the remaining cancer and then I need to make some decisions about getting further chemo and possibly radiation. But for the time being I'm celebrating with some cancer-fighting beer and pasties.

Lymphoma's Greatest Hits

Today we're going to count down the top four all time great Lymphoma moments from television and film. Why not top five you ask? Because I could only think of four. But don't worry, it's going to be awesome!

Number 4: Party of Five

Here we see some serious overacting by Matthew Fox as he sits in the doctor's office and gets a diagnosis of Hodgkin's. I like the part when get gets all dizzy and his pupils dilate and the room starts spinning and there is a nice cut to his big, sad, watery, brown eye. Charlie, you need to wipe off those tears. I know it's tough that your parents died in a car crash and that you have to bring up Bailey, Julia, Claudia and Owen on your own, but don't worry - by the end of season four you'll totally beat this cancer thing and it will only make the bonds of your family stronger. What you should be really upset about is that after Fox cancelled Party of Five Neve Campbell and Jennifer Love Hewitt went on to make a shit ton of money in slasher films, but your forrays into Hollywood have been disasters. Speed Racer? Vantage Point? Eeeesh. That's the real tragedy here.

Number 3: Kindergarten Cop

Okay, this clip isn't exactly about lymphoma but it is about tumors. For any kid brought up in the 80's or 90's Arnold Schwarzanegger permanently ruined a serious discussion of cancerous growths. After watching this film it's pretty much impossible not to say 'tumor' in a thick Austrian accent. I think this should be made standard clinical terminology. "Mr. Sutherland - I'm afraid you have a number of large cancerous too-mahs in your chest" sounds a lot less scary to me.

Number 2: Curb your enthusiasm

The better Hodgkin's. Comedy genius, I must remember to use this. What's really great is that this clip totally references clip number 4 on our list. That's just like, so, meta. 

Number 1: Family Guy

Finally, Mayor West reveals the shocking truth about the cause of lymphoma. Now you all can understand why I have the Hodgkin's.

Ultimate get well soon card

When you get sick, people like to buy you get well soon cards. If you're really lucky they have hilarious cartoons on the front, like Cathy (chocolate, chocolate, chocolate ACK!!!!!!) or Garfield (if people were meant to pop out of bed, we'd all sleep in toasters!!!!!). Unfortunately my friends back in Canada are too lowbrow to have heard of these sorts of things, so instead they put together a little get-well-soon video. Yes, it is clear they have too much free time on their hands and should probably consider taking up a hobby, like lawn darts or vampire LARPing. But I laughed until my face hurt and am enormously grateful. The full video is far too hilarious/incriminating to post in its entirety so I've put up a clip from it.

Note: this clip is NSFW as it contains animated man balls and sweary bits. Unless of course you work as an animator of man balls and swear like a sailor, then it's probably just fine. 

Chemotherapy Round 4

I had round 4 of chemo yesterday. Not much to report, still feeling okay and I had a look at my blood test results. Both red and white blood cell counts remain normal, which is nice to know, since low red blood cell counts can lead to anemia, and low white counts can lead to nasty infections and fever. I just noticed that my nose hair has fallen out. Like all of it. I don't know where it went. Did I inhale it? No, it probably fell out in the middle of the night, like rats abandoning a sinking ship. That's okay, I was never really sure what nose hair was for and I don't miss it.

This marks the end of cycle 2 of my ABVD treatments. In 13 days I'm due for a PET scan, which lets me know how 'chemosensitive' my cancer is. If it comes back with no sign of the Hodge, it's a very good thing. There is a strong correlation between successful mid treatment PET scans and overall survival/freedom from treatment failure rates. If it comes back blobby, I get kicked up to another chemo regime called BEACOPP. It's like chemo on steroids. No wait, I'm already on steroids so I need another analogy. BEACOPP is like chemo engineered by Germans (which is true). Ruthless and efficient, like a Mercedes Sedan or Angela Merkel.

Know your enemy

There's nothing like curling up with a good book before bedtime, right? For the past few weeks I've been reading two real page turners - Hodgkin Lymphoma - second edition and The Biology of Cancer. I've come away with three amazing facts.

1. FACT:  Hodgkin's is one of the rare cancers that have been conclusively linked to infection by a virus (at least in some patients). In fact in about 40-50% of those with similar case profiles to mine the tumors have DNA from the Epstein-Barr virus inside of them. This is the same virus that causes mononucleosis, which as every teenager knows is caused by kissing. After I get better I'm totally swearing off kissing teenagers.
2. FACT:  Brazilians lead the world in the incidence of penis cancer. I would take the Hodge over penis cancer.
3. FACT:  Almost all cancers are monoclonal. That means that every cell in the tumor descends from a single common ancestor. At any given time there are something like 10 trillion cells in your body happily going about their business and it only takes one of them to go all monkey face and then you get cancer. I want to take this opportunity to thank the 9,999,999,999,999 cells that are carrying around oxygen and fighting off bacteria and turning pints of beer into beer gut and moving numbers around in my brain. You guys are great, I wouldn't be where I am without you. To the 1 slacker cell who decided it would be fun to make unlimited copies of himself I want to say ha ha, I know you've done the biological equivalent of repeatedly photocopying your ass at the office Christmas party, and while we've all had a good laugh maybe it's time to sober up and call it a day. You're embarrassing yourself, plus you made my Mom cry.