Celiac Ninja's Blog

What Kind Of Doses?

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Off to Rituxin and chemo we go. Mom and I zipped up to Seattle where the Cancer Care Center was. First thing we did was get a cheap motel because it's a two day process for the Rituxin and chemo session. Filled out surveys and realized that the cancer my family has had was hitting an all time low by showing up this early in a twenty-year-old's body. How rude. They asked if I wanted a port. Alarm bells went off in my brain, I'm thinking "No way, that would stretch tissues that are going to be damaged by all this and God knows how I twist and turn at night." Ports are direct tubes through the upper ribs to the main artery of the heart. I declined, I would take it all through my arm and leg arteries.Even thought I HATED needles!!! So you can imagine how this was a tough decision, however I was terrified of a port directly plugged into my heart, damaging tissues that would soon be bathed in more damaging chemicals and then radiated. The first four doses of Rituxin would be spread out over the next month. It would be Rituxin one day and the next day chemo, then home for a week. In between those two days, Mom and I planned to get a big pizza with artichoke hearts and everything on it. Yeah!

During one of the four Rituxins (I've totally forgotten) I had a sorta of reaction. I started spazzing out on the bed and turned blue and drooled on myself. I was like, "What is happening now?! Am I having a senior moment?" Later, years later I learned that that reaction was the beginning of liver failure. Yippie. The nurses didn't mention that. Mom had yelled for the nurse to get this tube out of her daughter and they did-reluctantly. They put in more pain relievers, two kinds into the drip to help with the allergic reaction and stuck that Rituxin right back in my arm. I don't think I ever hated people following procedure as much as I did them right then. The following chemos would be continued back home and they weren't a welcome experience either. Many churches had gotten word that my mother's only daughter who'd hadn't turned twenty one yet was going through chemo and not having great reactions. There were more churches praying for my recovery than I knew existed in the area. Bob (the cancerous tumor) was going to die!

There was a moment where I got super depressed and drank a lot of cheap vodka, the kind in the plastic container. Little did I know that cheap vodka is made from wheat. I think I was pretty idiotic looking back, but how would I have know I had celiac disease? Doctors didn't believe it was real. They hadn't tested me for it or researched it on their own! One afternoon, I felt the worst. I lay on the big couch flat as a board. My body stopped moving, my mind stopped thinking, and I stopped breathing. There was a very deep spiritual experience which won't be told here beacuse it is personal. Mom came home in the evening, I had been laying their since she left. She works 8 hours. I told her about it. It was my second chance to start believing in the Lord and TRUSTING Him more. More than the bottle of vodka, more than the fear of people hating me, more than my own strength and determination that usually got me by (in my mind), more than being an rejected as an artist.

Mom and I decided that that was the last chemo. There had been eight done, the four Rituxin included, and that was enough. Bob had shrunk to the size they needed in order to feel that radiation would kill him further. That doctor was NOT happy with my decision. If he could have his way, he would have forced me to do the rest of the chemos (4 or more :just in case"). There were a lot of crisp words said back and forth, but it was indeed "MY BODY". My Grandma just laughs at my determination, not in a bad way, she is proud. She says I'm still the General's Grandaughter. I miss my Grandpa, he was a great dad! I tossed my chemo wig, horrible black haired smelly used thing, into the goodwill and pulled those tubes out of my arms and went to school. Got my license in Massage Therapy and myself diagnosed with Celiac Disease by a natural pathic doctor, after realizing the pathology of Celiac Disease I was studying in Massage School was matching my symptoms exactly. Yeah for education! Boo to loans.