Rejoining the Research Community

Today, I started cycle 8, another one combining irinotecan and temozolomide. I was expecting to feel tired this afternoon like last cycle. No, I don't feel 100%, but strangely, I have yet to feel the need to take a nap. More energy is a good thing; let's see if it lasts.

Today, though, I'm not going to write about chemo, but about an experience I had right before cycle 7. In my very first post, I mentioned that one of the subjects of my blog would be balancing what remains of my Ph.D. program with cancer treatments. This has proven to be very difficult. Fatigue from chemo is a significant issue. Adding rehab exercises on top of that takes a further bite out of my energy. Basically, the only guaranteed time there is where I can be productive are those third weeks when I'm feeling better, but oftentimes my energy level isn't back to normal until it's almost the weekend before I have to get chemo again.

Nonetheless, I've made progress. I had a couple of conference talks I was originally scheduled to give, one in Boston on February 25th, and another at the Copper Mountain ski resort in Colorado on March 19th. Both were during good weeks. However, I had yet to receive a prosthesis at the time of the Boston talk, and the Colorado talk was in a location far from a major medical facility in case something went wrong. Thankfully, one of my collaborators was at both conferences and able to give the talks in my place. However, I still was able to write the slides for both of them, which I did during the good weeks preceding each conference. I've also been able to add to my thesis bit by bit when I get the time and energy.

The biggest thing I was able to do occurred the Friday before Memorial Day. I had some work I'd gotten done last year that I still needed to publish. Between my diagnosis and my amputation, I was able to put together a paper, which my collaborators finished off and submitted as I was recovering in the hospital. The paper was submitted to a workshop on Large-Scale Parallel Processing that was held in Cambridge, MA on May 24th. The acceptance came in mid-February, and we had until the end of the month to send in the final paper. Thankfully, I had a good week where I could work on the paper, and was able to do the heavy lifting to get it done.

The trip itself was very energizing. My energy level was already high, as it was at the end of the third week of cycle 6. I used the Amtrak Northeast Regional to get there and back; it was about a 4 hour ride on the train. The trickiest thing was actually when I had to walk to the bathroom; it's not like the train was very shaky (it certainly didn't feel that way while I was seated), but while walking, all those inevitable little movements made me have to move very deliberately on my prosthetic leg. Ashley accompanied me during the trip, and having company was indispensable for this, my first trip out of New York since coming here for treatment.

The day of the workshop itself was a great, great day. I caught up with two of my collaborators, other researchers I knew, and was able to give a talk myself for a change. I was a bit rusty on a couple of occasions, but overall it went smoothly. The biggest thing of all, though, was a huge surge in my mental energy. I was suddenly getting a multitude of ideas for my research, and writing them down in my notebook. I always keep one for when I get ideas, and chemo has made me write in it far less often than I used to, but on the day of the workshop, I was on a tear. That made me feel great, and I came into cycle 7 with all sorts of plans and ideas on what I could get done. And then the chemo hit.

Here's a picture of my name tag from the workshop. A note to my Boston-based friends and followers: this was a brief work trip, so I'm sorry I couldn't see all of you. I don't know if I'll be up there again, but hopefully if I am I'll have more time during those trips.