keith’s new self

Went in to the BCCA for a bone marrow biopsy yesterday morning. Got some bloodwork done (which it looks like i’ll do pretty much every time I go in, to monitor my blood-cell levels) then went up to the top floor for the biopsy. Got the private room and gown special, and a very perky and funny nurse - said “no” to some Atavan, but got cookies and juice instead. The doctor came in about 20 minutes later, and got me to lie on my side while she started freezing the back of my left hip. The tiny needles they used for the local anesthetic were in some ways the most “painful” part of the procedure. When the big needles and bone-tunneling devices went in after, they just felt like weird intense pressure, but not painful as such. The most painful part of the whole thing was actually the bad art on the wall - someone’s brightly colored impression of dying flowers. I could sympathize with Wilde’s famous last words:

My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go..

Despite the lack of physical pain, the experience was fairly traumatic for my body. I was sweating buckets (”I could see your fingertips sweating!” - Krista), and the digestive cookies (poorly named, in this case) and cranberry juice turned to poison in my gut, and gave me very painful indigestion for about half the day. I think I’ll try doing these kinds of things on an empty stomach going forward.

Not much residual pain from the operation. A few Tylenols and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s later and I’m right as rain.

[Listening to Oscar See Through Red Eye by Boards Of Canada]

tags: bc cancer agency, cancer, hodgkin’s lymphoma, lymphoma, oscar wilde

posted: 7:41 am

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The amount of support and love I’ve received from everyone - family, friends, co-workers, even people I barely know - has been truly wonderful and healing. Thank you all so much.

posted: 8:55 am

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I’ve had pretty low energy levels lately, and as a result I can’t do the normal amount of activities I’m used to in a day. I’m finding I have to allocate my time more carefully, since my stamina to do sustained activity (even sit in a meeting) is more limited. It’s taken a bit of getting used to - I normally take my energy levels for granted a bit and just assume I can push through anything. This whole experience has been a great reality check for that - realizing I need to listen to my body, and work in harmony with it, not just order it around. And also not beat myself up for the fact that I have limits; my cultural programming is to avoid asking for help, and to try to not appear weak. Again this has been a huge learning - it seems all bets are off when you get a serious illness.

I’ve been making a delicious cooked-grain breakfast of equal parts millet, amaranth and barley. Today I also had a shot of wheatgrass (always an intense experience) and a cup of my magic judo-chop-the-lymphoma tea. My herbalist friend Krista Dawn, who lives in Maui, is sending me some more goodies - omega-3 oil, a tincture she whipped up, and some dried shiitake mushrooms.

Downloaded a bunch of comedies to enhance my sedentary lifestyle: 40 Year Old Virgin, Harold & Kumar Go To The White Castle, Fun With Dick & Jane, Team America - World Police, Coffee And Cigarettes, Meet The Fockers, School Of Rock.

I’m really looking forward to starting treatment. The last couple weeks have been a bit of hurry-up-and-wait. Trying to stay in-the-moment with it, but I definitely have a strong feeling of wanting to take action. I’m having a bone marrow biopsy Monday morning, a CT scan of my belly the Monday after that (at which point I should know the stage of the cancer), and my first chemo is booked for June 6th.

tags: cancer, herbalism, hodgkin’s lymphoma, lymphoma, movies

posted: 8:46 am

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Last wednesday I went for an echocardiogram at UBC Hospital. An echocardiogram is an ultrasound of your heart. A technologist used an ultrasound wand thing to look at my heart from all different angles. It was cool - I could watch the screen and see my heart beating away. When they were done, a cardiologist, Dr Isserow, came by to look at the results. It turns out I have a pericardial effusion - an unusual accumulation of fluid in the pericardial cavity (thing that contains the heart). This is undoutably another symptom of my condition, and it means that my heart has to work harder to move the same amount of blood. This was likely the cause of the swelling I had in my feet a month ago, but it looks like my heart adapted to the condition, and the swelling went down again. It’s not an immediate concern, the doctor just said that I should go to emergency if I feel short of breath, or if the swelling comes back.

tags: cancer, cardiology, hodgkin’s lymphoma, lymphoma, medicine, pericardial effusion

posted: 8:10 am

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The clinic gave me an image of my tumor, taken with extremely precise imaging equipment. Here it is:

The tumor has a tough exterior, but inside is filled with a delicious sweet pulp.

Despite its friendly appearance however, it is evil and must be destroyed. Death to the pineapple!

posted: 9:23 pm

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I visited the BC Cancer Agency this morning and met my oncologist, Dr. Savage. I also got a bunch more bloodwork and x-rays done - they have their own lab and x-ray and CT facilities there. Dr. Savage filled in a few more of the blanks regarding the disease and treatment. I’m booked for a CT scan of my belly, to look for suspicious things below the diaphram. This is one criteria of how they distinguish the stage or severity - whether or not any lymph nodes below the diaphram are affected. Dr. Savage said that Hodgkin’s “likes to stay” within the mediastinum (chest cavity), which is a good thing. She also said the Hodgkin’s is quite sensitive to chemo and even after being zapped just once, the tumor will start to “melt”. Certainly enjoyed visualizing that.

I’m also going to get a bone marrow biopsy, where they stick a needle into your hip and draw out a “core sample” of spongy bone marrow. This is done to check if any Hodgkin’s cells are “hiding” in your bones - if so a bit more treatment is required. I’ve heard that the needle is quite painful - I’m going to have to think of an extra special reward for myself after I get that done, maybe another stop at Tim Horton’s will be in order. Perhaps concentrating on that maple donut will help with the pain.

Again I was impressed by the professionalism and competence of the staff. The BCCA is an cool place - helping all kinds of different people through such a complicated, challenging, debilitating disease is no easy feat. Especially with so much fear and stigma around cancer (and health in general really), there are a lot of psychological and psychosomatic barriers to overcome to getting people healthy. They offer services beyond pure medicine like counselors, dietitians, and even a spiritual advisor to help offer a more holistic service.

I took the bandage off my biopsy site today - it’s healing nicely. I got a little infection from the IV my last two days in the hospital, resulting in a painful red bump on my arm. Heard from someone that this can happen if they don’t flush it enough with saline - and I did notice that the nurses did not seem to flush it regularly. No biggie - just something to be aware of in the future. I started taking antibiotics for it and it is improving quickly.

tags: cancer, health, hodgkin’s lymphoma, lymphoma

posted: 9:09 pm

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This morning I picked up a bunch of herbs for making some super tea.

• Astralagus - builds energy, helps the immune system
• Nettles - full of vitamins and minerals
• Peppermint - good taste and digestion
• Ginseng root - regenerative properties
• Pau d’arco - helps the immune system

It’s nice working with loose herbs rather than tea bags. I got mine from a local Gaia Garden store. Tastes pretty good too!

posted: 11:14 pm

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I’m starting a new diet with the goal of healing my body, and recovering quickly from treatment. I’m using Paul Pitchford’s book Healing With Whole Foods as a basis. It’s a kind of bible of nutrition that I’ve had sitting on my shelf for many years, now being put to good use. It has a whole chapter on diet for cancer and other degenerative diseases.

The main goal of my diet is an emphasis on organic whole foods, and avoiding overly refined, manufactured food and toxins.

Specifically eating more:

• whole grains and seeds
• legumes
• veggies
• fruit

and avoiding:

• all refined products (e.g. sugar, refined flour)
• meat
• dairy
• margarine and polyunsaturated fats
• salt
• chemical additives
• caffeine
• alcohol

The cancer diet is kindof a detox, purgative and regenerative diet in one. On the one hand you’re purging a disease from your system, but you also want something that’s regenerative and strength-building when you’re being zapped with chemo and radiation.

So far so good. I bought a centrifual juicer, and I’ve been making organic apple-beet-carrot (ABC) juice daily, and drinking it by itself mid-morning or mid-afternoon.

Every morning I make a yummy pot of oatmeal, with organic rolled oats (way better than quick oats IMO - try em!), raisins, a mashed banana, and ground flax seed (all the other ingredients are added as the oats cook, so that they cook a bit too and the flavours mix). Today I cooked a separate pot of amaranth (it takes longer to cook than the oats), and stirred that in too. Then a splash of soy or rice milk for flavour. I make enough that I only eat half in the morning, and eat the other half some other time in the day.

tags: cancer, diet, food, health, hodgkin’s lymphoma, lymphoma, organic

posted: 11:01 pm

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[See my post hodgkin’s lymphoma - a journey begins for context.]

In the hospital I got the standard bed and gown, and nurses wasted no time hooking me up to a saline drip and taking blood samples. I was visited by several different doctors, often accompanied by residents who were there to learn from the masters. Dr. Evans came by: “You have a mass the size of a pineapple in your chest”. I didn’t ask “Organic pineapple or chemically grown? There’s a big difference!”. The biopsy operation was scheduled for the next day. I was to not eat or drink anything (even water) as of midnight that night - my only food was a delicious saline/dextrose solution IV.

The biopsy operation was interesting - it was under local anesthetic with sedation as this was safer than general anesthetic (being fully unconscious). It started with a oxygen mask that had a mix of some kind of sedative. I remember telling the anesthesiologist that it wasn’t working, and he said that it was just a “cocktail”, and that the main course was coming soon. They had to insert “large” IVs into arteries in my arm and foot, so that they could quickly administer drugs if necessary. I was fully conscious for them sticking in these large needles, and it hurt like hell. I remember yelling “Jesus Christ that hurts!” as one of the anesthesiologists stuck me in my wrist. I remember hearing one of them shout “He’s reacting!” - I get the feeling they thought I was more sedated / anesthetized than I actually was. I also felt a searing slicing pain in my chest - possibly the surgeon cutting in but I’m not sure. In any case - it was more pain than I expected, and I still have some lingering emotion from it that I’m working on releasing.

In post-op I started coming around, and at some point I noticed an intense pain around my shoulder blade that was so painful it had tears coming up. The nurse gave me a shot of something in the IV which quickly took that away. I heard later that this pain was not uncommon and would fade away over the next couple days, which it did.

After a couple days of recuperation I got my initial diagnosis of Hodgkin’s lymphoma. They didn’t know what stage the cancer was at - that requires more testing. I was to see an oncologist the following week and start treatment. A couple days after that I left the hospital, gladly going home to a comfortable bed and real food.

tags: cancer, hodgkin’s lymphoma, lymphoma

posted: 9:36 am

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[See my post hodgkin’s lymphoma - a journey begins for context.]

My name is Keith Grennan, I’m a 27-year-old caucasian male living in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I grew up in a middle class home in the suburbs, went to university and got a degree in computer engineering, and have been a professional software developer for about 5 years.

A couple months ago I started experiencing some strange symptoms - heavy night sweats (waking up in a puddle, literally), swelling and pain in my knees and ankles, a hard lump behind my left nipple. I went to a walk-in clinic, and the doctor there, Dr. Dwyer, ordered a whole battery of tests - extensive bloodwork, a chest x-ray, an ultrasound of my lump, and an ECG.

After getting the tests done, I returned to see Dr. Dwyer. The lump turned out to be gynecomastia, a non-harmful swelling of the breast tissue. He didn’t tell me anything besides that, but immediately booked a CT scan of my chest. The CT scan was pretty straightforward - “contrast” (a dye, essentially) is delivered by IV, and you lie down on a bed that moves back and forth through a large ring.

It was around this time that I started to think I had something really wrong with me, and started to feel scared and upset that this was happening. It was good to let these feelings come up - they’ve been my only really upset moments so far - since then I’ve felt really positive and happy, and somewhat fearless.

I returned to Dr. Dwyer several days later, and he said “there’s something in your chest, but we don’t know what it is” (Dr. Dwyer is a man of few words). He sent me to see an inside medicine specialist, one Dr. Keebler, who did a further physical examination, and explained a bit more of what they thought might be wrong with me, although not getting very specific. Dr. Keebler then made an appointment for me to see Dr. Kenneth Evans, a thoracic surgeon, about getting a biopsy of the mass in my chest. However, that same day, Dr. Evans called and told me that he wanted me admitted to the hospital immediately, so that they could start right away.

So I admitted myself at Vancouver General Hospital, with preparations for an extended sedentary period: laptop, stack of DVDs (including Lord of the Rings and Matrix sets), a few books, pajamas and slippers, etc. Despite a recent shift to a healthier diet, on the way to the hospital I stopped by Tim Hortons and ate two donuts - what the hell!

posted: 9:02 am

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