Reality Check

Treatment #8 is now behind us, so we’re two-thirds of the way through. There aren’t many foods Nick can tolerate during the first few days after a treatment, but after some trial and error, he’s settled on a smoothie for breakfast, a couple of poached eggs (but no toast) for lunch and, surprisingly, green lentil soup for dinner. I say ‘surprisingly’ because Ray inadvertently used green lentils instead of red ones a while back and the resulting soup looked more likely to induce nausea than to quell it. It tastes significantly better than it looks though and it’s what Nick has requested for those days when he can’t stomach much else.

We’d thought that things would get easier once we passed the half-way mark, with the arrival of spring and the end of flu season, but that hasn’t really been the case. For one thing, spring and winter have so far been virtually indistinguishable. Our property is still covered in snow and the temperatures still have those tiresome minus signs in front of them.

And, although we just finished teaching Nick about the importance of compounding in investing, we discounted the effects of compounding in other parts of our life: the cumulative effects of stress, the cumulative effects of the chemotherapy. The last few kms of a marathon aren’t easier than the first few just because you know you’re closer to the end (okay, so I’ve never actually run a full marathon so I don’t know if that’s true, but let’s just roll with it).

On top of that, the doctor has started talking about what happens if the lymphoma isn’t gone after the treatments are done. While the CT scan results after his sixth treatment showed that the chemo is generally working and the large mass in his chest has shrunk significantly, one node in his collar bone doesn’t appear to be responding. Because they only do a CT scan at the mid-way point and save the more expensive PET scans for pre- and post-treatment, we won’t know whether what’s showing on the scan is, in fact, active lymphoma (rather than, say, scar tissue) until July. Nick’s last treatment is scheduled for June 1st and his PET scan will be at the beginning of July. If any lymphoma remains, then more of the same isn’t going to help. At that point, we’d be looking at either a month of daily radiation or more intense chemo that would require a stem cell transplant. As the doctor said, that’s getting way ahead of ourselves. We’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it, but it’s a bit like being 28 kms into your marathon and being told, ‘by the way some of you are actually in a triathlon, but just focus on your run for now’.

Add to that all the sad stuff happening in the news this week and a rather volatile stock market just as I head into retirement, and maintaining positivity becomes a bit of a struggle. It’s like…you’re running the marathon and it starts to rain and you get a cramp and… Too much? Okay, no more analogizing.

On the positive side, Nick and his friend Grant are planning a 2-week trip to Japan in August, with the understanding that they may need to postpone until next year. They’ve started booking what they can based on the cancellation policies and are enjoying planning their itinerary, including climbing Mount Fuji. For those of you who’ve been to Japan, feel free to share any ‘must-sees’.

No pics this time as I still haven’t replaced my phone.