The Plan

          Though chemotherapy was not a subject that I had given much consideration before this time, I think I was under the impression that the term was descriptive of a singular thing, as if all cancer patients received the same treatment regardless of their respective ailments. I quickly discovered the misguidedness of this preconception, however, and instead realized that the type of chemo prescribed by a physician varies in both duration and toxicity based on the particular cancer a patient has. In my case, the most standard approach to treating stage 2 Hodgkin’s is a chemo regimen concisely known as ABVD. As one can pretty easily guess, the four letters stand as an acronym for the four chemicals used in the therapy. A: Adriamycin, B: Bleomycin, V: Vinblastine, D: Dacarbazine. After learning these names, I instantly formed a love/hate relationship with them. Love, for the good they were meant to do against the cancer; hate, for the cost they demanded from my body in return.

            As anyone slightly acquainted with chemo knows, the real bugger about the whole thing is its indiscriminate nature. Yes, it is designed to attack the rapidly dividing cancer cells in your body, but it doesn’t take the time to figure out which rapidly dividing cells are cancer and which are say, the cells that constitute your immune system or the cells responsible for producing your hair. It just goes like a rabid dog, snapping up anything that meets its unfortunately broad criteria. Every two weeks for six months was my initial sentencing. That was, of course, if the PET scan after two months of treatment came back clean, meaning the cancer was responding well. While engaging in something that can generally be regarded as less than fun for half of a year did not send me into giddy fits, I reasoned that if I could suffer through the effects of this thing growing inside my chest for the better part of four years, I could stand going through a little more to be rid of it. The doctors also recommended an additional month of radiation following chemo, but we haven’t landed the plane on that one yet. There are still pros and cons to be weighed.

            So there was the plan, plain and simple enough. Yet at the time, the big question that still remained to be answered was could I remain in school while I did chemo? Of course, I tried to squeeze every bit of optimism from the doctors that I could; I just needed one of them to say “Oh yeah, no big deal. You can stay in school and handle this other crap no problem,” and I would have taken that as my license to forge ahead on my road to the increasingly evasive goal of graduating in four years. Unfortunately, no one was willing to offer anything more than a measly “Well, you might be okay, but don’t count on it.” My inner super student slumped in defeat. Nothing seemed more repulsive to me than to abandon the Auburn ship for at least one semester while my body decided how it was going to react to prescribed doses of poison. I wasn’t just giving up my role as a student, but also my leadership position in a student volunteer organization and my job at the university’s writing center, both of which I enjoyed immensely. Cancer was already going to take my health away; was it too much to ask to keep these other things that I valued so highly? Though it pained me, I could not in good conscience throw myself back into my busy student life without knowing what condition I would be in for the next several months. Like a little kid having his candy pried from his hungry fingers, I relinquished my hope that I would return to school for the fall semester.

            I have never been particularly good at goodbyes. Perhaps somewhere deep down I believe that if I refuse to recognize something is over, it won’t be. Despite my aversion, however, I said goodbye to many of my friends at Auburn during the one weekend I spent there while I collected my things to come home. I loathed doing it, but I said my farewells with an underpinning note of optimism and anticipation that my absence would only be temporary and that I would return better than when I left. To this day I don’t know for sure how long my educational hiatus will last, but I continually hope for a sooner rather than later prognosis. So that was the plan: fight one battle before returning to the other. It made the most logical sense, and it was in accordance with all the voices of caution and reason that only wished me the best. Even so, that didn’t keep me from hating it all the same.