Reborn. Again.

Cancer Free (Day +54)

Try to eat. Sleep. Repeat. (Day +32)

Try to eat. Sleep. And repeat, has been my program lately. Road to recovery definitely has its share of pot holes and zig zag paths. Speaking of roads, I’m watching outside my bedroom window overlooking the park and street that lead to the entrance and exit to my gated community. Watching people drive by and go about their important lives. Well I don’t know that for sure, people who are driving by could be complete losers driving around for no reason but the former makes me feel more at ease. People playing in the park, dogs frolicking about in the green grass. It’s like watching living tv. Let me tell you, it’s much better then watching that other kind of tv.

Time to get real. Anxiety has been creeping into my life blocking my view of endless blessings God is laying down upon me lately. My doctors say my recovery is going just as expected, and my blood counts are looking great and are on the rise. They stop and ask me, as an unsatisfied look appears on my face, “So Zach, how are you feeling?”. To which I reply “I feel like crap, but if you say I’m doing good, your the doc.” I say that with a lack of amusement just because I don’t feel like myself. Like I did before my transplant. When I say I feel like crap to my doctor I’m talking about losing my hair, nausea, the inevitability of weight loss, and lack of appetite as side effects from the transplant. Talking about that stuff with my doctor pre transplant and going through it myself mid-post transplant are two entirely different instances all together. It’s tough. It will be tough, but all of that will get better, with time and exercise. But, man oh man, am I blessed. Nothing but support and love flooding through in the form of emails, calls, facetiming, text messages, posts, and first person visits. Thank you and keep it coming. I’m getting better everyday with your support. Today is a new day, and I’m feeling great so far.

Battle #147….WON (Day 19)

My 147th battle has been WON! I don’t know if I’ve been through 147 per say, but I picked a random number of that caliber to make a point. I finally broke out of Mayo Clinic. Like a fugitive of the medical community. I’ve never FELT SO ALIVVVE!! First night prompted itself to be a very luxurious night. The idea of being able to curl up in my own sheets and pillows and teddy bear (Yeah, layoff. I have a teddy bear, so what? It’s actually a stuffed ape that Kayla got me for V day but thats not important right now) and getting my 8 hours. Not to mention the end of “every 4 hour” wake up call I was used to in the hospital. It was such a fallacy of my own mind to get a “full nights” sleep.  Horrible first night, just being that I was nauseated all night and couldn’t get all the sleep I wanted but who does anyway? A lot of people, but not everyone.  Thats good enough for me, and it will get better.  My body has been completely and utterly broken down to nothing.  My immune system could probably go up against a 1 year old infant’s.  Well , no, then again the infant’s immune system would beat mine into oblivion (at least for now).  Nausea and relief from nausea are going back and forth like an old school game of pong.  (If you don’t know what pong is, Google it, jeeze) To finish this up on a positive note, I’m knocking back these days to recovery like I’m downing my stupid amounts of medication.  As days climb away from my transplant (day +1,+2,+3) I’m feeling better and better.  Life is good.

“I’m out!” (Day +14)

I’m out! My time has come to leave this great place at Mayo Clinic. Great nurses, terrible food, and I don’t have that IV poll following me around anymore. Thing should go make some new friends, sadly, I know it will. Just to be able to maneuver around outside is a blessing in and of itself. I was probably the only recently released patient doing ballerina twirls and twist right outside the front doors of the hospital. Well, that was a bit of a fib but just imagine that great image I gave you for the rest of your day! Not to mention I’m going to get a full nights rest!! Wait… Did you already forget about that? The lovely nurses at Mayo needed to get vitals and my weight every 4 hours into the night (pretty much, your walking up a couple times a night). So long random weight checks!! Seriously though, God bless those nurses. They’re the only ones who can clean up feces with a smile on their faces.

But to go a little deeper, people ask me, how do you I stay positive through all of this?

One name: Jesus Christ

Here I go. Walking into one of the best hospitals in the U.S. (and possibly the world) to get a stem cell transplant, which already a miracle that it is possible. People come from all over the U.S. and the world to be treated. They even have a hotel next to it, I mean that’s boss status in the hospital community I would imagine. Not only is being next to one of the highest rated hospitals in the states, I also live next to it.  

Do you want to know what (my) Cancer is to me?  Cancer is a blessing. Yes but more an opportunity, and I’ll tell you why, because that idea can be (and to most, is) far fetched. For the longest time I’ve been praying for strength, perspective, and happiness.  Having some but mostly none of these aspects in life and sick of believing in false idols to make me temporarily satisfied.  God has given me all of these through my disease.  Strength to stand the treatment, and my everyday life.  Perspective for the experiences he allows me to have.  Happiness for the outcome of those experiences.  I’m so greatful for all He has given me, giving me gifts of being a musician, photographer, to allowing me to sleep with out pain and nausea for the last few weeks. No matter what happens, I know because He is there.

For those of you who stuck around through all my rants and raves, thank you. I got to see some great people come visit me during my time at Mayo and I hope I wasn’t to crabby.

Till next time, party on!

These are falling times (day +9)

So, these aren’t really falling times, I was trying to be clever when I’ve done something silly.. stupid…, and clumsily. That’s right I’m talking falling, like tripping an *plop*, flat on my face. I fell today and I am now prepared to chat about it.
You know falling is the worse thing you can do in a hospital? Once it happens, new signs go up on your door. They give you these nasty red socks that I’ve been dreading to get. The nurses treat you like a leper. Well not really, they’re actually really nice about it. I was hoping to avoid reddies this time around. I’m not going to wear them. I’ll show them!

Oh never told everyone what I got Kayla for a valentine gift. (some people have been complaining I haven’t revealed it yet) I made her this picture book of us, and all the pictures we have since we’ve been together. Put little captions underneath each one. Turned out to be a great little book, I was proud of it, and most importantly, she loved it!

Chew on this little bit of awesomeness, my round of doctors are giving me a tentative discharge date (they haven’t told me yet) for when I can leave the hospital. They’re like the CIA when it comes to info, I’ll just have to wait for a leak somewhere, or I can go the Jason Bourne route. Nah. I forget what day of the week it is too much, I couldn’t handle it if I kept forgetting my own name too.

Breath in (Day +7)

Ugh. The worst of it all seems to have come to an end. Past couple nights has either been constant nausea or constant muscle-skeletal pain. Luckily muscle-skeletal muscle irritation is much more fun to say then go though. it’s time to breath, start breathing in this new life that Christ has put before me, and start to live it. I’ve been having a hard time in here spiritually as well. When all this pain is coming on and I’m looking for him and you don’t get an instantaneous answer, it could be very discouraging. It was but there he was on that last second giving relief to my pain. So blessed.
If something bad happens to you, don’t give up…pray, live.

“D Day” (Day 0)

D Day. Ground zero. Rebirth. Some what.. (Cut to a scene of an epic battle) Camera pans steadily downward from black. Blood caresses the morning sky of all the unlucky stem cells that didn’t make it through. A battle, versus two sides. Chemo vs Zach’s Immune system. Its a blood bath, some cells manage to scream to their body’s immune system, “send more troops to fight this chemo!” It was too late, the chemo whipped everything out. It came to do what it was meant to do. Like the nuclear bomb of the body it left no trance of good or bad cells. Finally all the dust settles, and there is no movement for miles.

Believe it or not getting my stem cells infused this time around was much more anticlimactic. Last time I was getting a prior chemo regiment that was knocking me out every 2 weeks I had to get it to my first transplant. This time around I just laid there watching what seemed to be a bag of blood being infused but was really were stem cells. From now on, this transplant will challenge my strength to the fullest, and my patience to the limit. Let’s do this!!

Free at last! Day (-2,-1)

Free at las-!

Well almost.  I have gotten free of all my chemo! No more chemo! (for life) I feel like I can efficiently bring day -2 and day -1 together as one.  First of all, shout out to my nurses for being so awesome and nice during my transplant and in the future.  These guys bring the party frequently asking me if they can get me anything?  Waiting on my hand and foot, bringing medication, cleaning up, I have a bad habit of knocking my empty water bottles off my end table.  Just swoop in after I accidentally dropped it and would snatch it up and throw it away, really nice people in my opinion.

I don’t know if any of you knew this but the stem cell transplant has changed from Tomorrow, Feb 16. to the 17th.  People are all asking me how I feel about it expecting an angry answer from myself.  It gives me time to climb back into myself and find a true answer that I don’t repeat for certain reason that I have a very convicting answer.  You know how lucky I am to be this far? To get this far?  How do I stay positive through all of this?  One name: Jesus Christ

Want to hear something else that is cool?  So as most of you don’t know, I have blood type O-, universal donor! WOO! Which is kind of humorous, because even though cancer isn’t present in my body, that still excludes me from donating blood.  Which sort of nixes the whole universal donor thing. I’ll be hanging out with blood type A’s from now on, WHAT UP TYPE A’s!? Your probably asking yourself how is this possible? Basically, they want my donors stem cells to be infused and these new stem cells recognize which cells are my old stem cells and which are cancer cells, then fights them off.  Which brings us up to Graft vs Host disease.  Now this pretty little disease happens when the donors stem cells don’t quite get along with my body’s immune system, and both side start an attack.  Leaving me anywhere from nausea, rashes and anything else in between.  Ever hear the expression “What mamma won’t know, won’t hurt her?” And no, I don’t have a crazy butt tattoo that I never told her about. I mean if I don’t hear the crazy side effects, then I won’t go crazy during the procedure, and just sort of take it as it comes.  Ultimate live in the moment experience.

Now time to get start with this thing

And….here…we…go.

D Day.