Hello, tumor fans!
K-BWE has been urging me to write an update. Honestly, my health problems are nothing compared to the whole world's right now, but here's a little cancer news to cheer you up.
I don't know about you, but every time I step out the door, even to sniff the breeze, every time anyone in the house even touches the door, I scrub my entire body with pure bleach using steel wool. Then, I bathe in pure alcohol. Yes, it stings, but it's a good sting--like habanero chili peppers, but on your whole body, including the wiggly parts.
Anyway, back to cancer. When I last wrote, I had just had an MRI of my head. The results were OK. The tumor hadn't grown. It didn't shrink, but beggars can't be choosers.
Since then, we have all entered the zombie apocalypse. I wanted to keep working in my medical office, but, after the infectious disease specialist at Man's Best Hospital (MBH), my colleagues (1), and my wife ganged up on me, I gave up. They told me that, although the exact effect of my immunotherapy on my immune system is unclear, I am at "higher risk."
So I have started seeing my patients via telephone and sometimes video from the guest room in my basement. I miss seeing patients in person, but I don't miss the commute, and it's certainly nice to have the dog sleeping on the guest bed an arm's length from me while I work.
Meanwhile, treatment continues apace, so I went back for more on Wednesday.
MBH resembles a military zone. No one who is not a patient is allowed in, so while K-BWE drove me there, she was not allowed to accompany me inside the building.(2) I had to go through three checkpoints to get to my first appointment. That's three strip searches and a colonoscopy! Not really. They just asked me for my name, date of birth, whether I had been out the country(3) or had recently French-kissed someone with COVID-19.
At the first appointment, they stuck a funky needle into the strange bump under the skin of my chest and attached a little rig so that someone could hook-up a my immunotherapy later. Then I went to see Dr. Manhattan, my excellent and suave oncologist. After we discussed how much I am at risk for getting COVID-19 because of my permanently messed up nasopharynx(4), we spent the rest of the visit reminiscing about our overlapping times working in labs at Wicked Famous Cancer Institute almost 30 years ago. We knew several of the same people and worked one floor away from each other. Small world.
About the treatment, I said this on Facebook:
"Sitting in an oncology infusion room here at Mass. General. Service is slow! I got the appetizer (saline) quickly enough, but it took them another half an hour to get the entree (immunotherapy). They don’t even have a liquor license! I’m giving my nurse no tip, and this place is going to get a terrible review from me on YELP!"
After my treatment, I made my way out of the fortress MBH has become, rejoined my best wife ever(5), and she drove me home.
On a serious note, don't get too excited about 'cures' for COVID-19. You cannot cure or prevent COVID-19 by blowing a blow dryer up your nose or any other orifice. In fact, you will do great damage to your nose and sinuses, making them more vulnerable to it. Also, don't gargle bleach, essential oils, or anything else. Don't go to tanning salon. It just gives you skin cancer.
There are scammers taking advantage of the crisis to sell fake cures. I won't name the latter. I don't want to advertise for them.
There are scientifically illiterate reporters jumping the gun on potential cures that have not been adequately proven to work yet. Slow down. There is no proven cure, and there is no vaccine.
And if you are a doctor, don't prescribe hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine to yourself or your friends and family. It is highly unethical. There is already a shortage because too many doctors are doing this. People who need the drugs for diseases that the drugs are proven to treat are are not getting them, and those people are suffering. Even if hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are definitively proven useful for COVID-19, they should go first to those who are very very sick.
Everyone, just stay 6 feet away from anyone outside your household. Wash your hands or use alcohol sanitizer every time you touch anything that someone outside the household has touched, especially plastics (like grocery cart handles), or metal (like doorknobs). You can go outside, and you should. Walk, run, enjoy the spring, but take care of yourself.
Everyone be safe.
--Tom
* * *
(1) The Chief of my practice (I will not call him Dear Leader, though I was tempted just now. He's a very nice man. I will just call him Chief.) also pointed out that the inside of my face resembles a bomb crater, and is probably like a giant vacuum sucking up viral crunchies.
(2) K-BWE, who is a superhero, was on the phone fighting for justice from the car in the parking garage while I was in treatment.
(3) At every checkpoint, I told them that I had just gotten back from a lovely trip to Wuhan, China, and that it's really cheap to stay there right now. For some reason, they didn't believe me.
(4) She said, "Tom, the inside of your face resembles a bombed out sewage plant overrun by a hoard of toads, snakes, cockroaches, and zombies coated in leeches. You'll be in deep snit if you come within 10 miles of work! Stay the truck away!"
Alright. Enough already. I get it.
(5) K is my best wife ever (BWE). All of the others were too smelly.
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Willow is my new office-mate. Here she is, hard at work.
