My long standing chemo sherpa has taken off to Belize for five months on a well deserved break from his arduous work managing my weekly chemo program. In his stead this week is his son Kyle, whom we have aptly named Obi Wan Chemobi.
Obi Wan picked me up at 3pm, I took my pills under his watchful eye and we jumped in the car. And the mission was under foot - Kyle even made it up the whole hill without breaking a sweat.
In great Chemosabe style Hal gave me a few presents to open at chemo as he wasn’t going to be there. The gifts were incredibly thoughtful and made me smile a big Benadryl smile. First gift was one of those biscuits with the red gelatin in the middle - I believe they are called Peak Frean Fruit Cream cookies. We always try to find them when we go but alas have really only gotten them once or twice. But in a great stroke of irony today the volunteers rolled their cart full of goodies…including the fancy Peak Freans!
The next gift was a beautiful wooden box with the golden Unicorn that Mom held on to as she was going through her cancer. Hal has kept the piece of jewelry for the last seven years and when I opened the box there it sat. It was Hal’s way of telling me he was still with me in spirit. There were also a few special pictures and of course another fancy cookie in the box.
So beautiful indeed.
Today was my last chemo of Temsirolimus and it was awesome to have Obi Wan at my side. We did the usual protocols, hooked up to my IV and of course played the guess my blood pressure game - for the first time I won.
This drug has done it’s job but now we hand off the responsibility of keeping the tumours at bay to Ipi / Nivo. I’ll go into more detail on this combo of chemo and immunotherapy in another post but for now I get a two week break to clean out my body and get myself ready for the double toxicity of the Ipi / Nivo.
My next two weeks couldn’t have come at a better time as I’ve noticed I have been dragging a bit as of late and my patience isn’t where I want it to be. Seems to me like a classic case of burnout, both physically and mentally. A change will be as good as a rest I’m hoping.
But today was a nice way to end the year, a beautiful bright sunny day with the knowledge that it was my last bout of this chemo. The gifts were lovely, my newest sherpa was brilliant and the nurses were incredible as always.
A great day indeed.
I would like to wrap the post with a great quote from the original Obi Wan - “Luke, you’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.” / “The truth is often what we make of it; you heard what you wanted to hear, believed what you wanted to believe.”
Seems I found the right chemo partner don’t you think.
PS my son Jack came up with the name Obi Wan Chemobi. My proudest moment.