Category Archives: Health

The Chemo Chronicles: Hitting the limit

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I did far too much on Tuesday, and crashed into my own physical limit. Hitting the wall hasn’t been fun, but it has been educational.

First, early Tuesday morning, I walked to the park to watch the sunrise.

Later in the morning, we got ourselves to the Blaisdell Concert Hall where the Native Hawaiian Convention was set to honor the 50th anniversary of the January 1976 landing on Kahoolawe, a protest against the Navy’s bombing of the island. It has widely been considered one of the key sparks of the Hawaiian Renaissance of the 1970s. At least five of the participants in that first protest landing have died. Molokai’s Walter Ritte and I were the only ones to appear in person.

It really wasn’t a strenuous outing. It just required walking around the concert hall a bit to get back stage where we then waited around for more than an hour for our moment before the audience.

I felt bad about not staying afterward to mingle with the audience, but given the risk of infection while undergoing chemo, and the advice to avoid crowds where you could easily pick up a cold, flu, or worse, I decided, once again, that discretion was the better part of valor as a matter of self protection. So we slipped out of the building and hailed an Uber to the ride home.

At this point, I should have cut the day short.
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Getting poi ready to eat

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Now that I’ve figured out the delivery days that Taro Brand poi arrives at our nearby Times Supermarket and at Foodland in Aina Haina, I’m figuring out how to keep the refrigerator stocked.

I took this photo after adding two bags fresh bags yesterday (Friday), delivery day at Times.

The two bags at the top are easily identified as the fresh poi by their color, a dark gray. I’ll leave these on the kitchen counter at room temperature for a week or so, or until needed. I’m not sure of the right word. Leaving them out to ripen?

The third bag, closest to the camera, has been out at room temperature since Thursday of the prior week, and is ready to empty into a bowl, add water if necessary, and refrigerate until the next meal. Note this poi’s reddish color, indicating some fermentation has been taking place and it’s likely to be nice and tart. In other words, ready to eat!

I’ve been eating poi in place of rice and potato, although I still cook those for Meda. And I’ve been eating a couple of bags per week in the expectation that poi is going to improve my gut health and deliver needed nutrition.

I have always preferred sour poi since small kid time. So do many of my Hawaiian friends. That was the reason that I bristled years ago at Honolulu Magazine’s “Sour Poi Awards” given to the tongue-in-cheek awards that “poke fun at the dumb, the daft, and the deranged local news, political gaffes, and wacky mishaps that occurred over the previous twelve months.” It struck me as an admission of a subtle anti-Hawaiian bias or, perhaps, simple ignorance of the fact that sour poi is the preference of many in the islands. Unfortunate, but true.

The Chemo Chronicles: It is what it is….

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I received a text from another reporter offering an election-related tip if I could report on it.

He asked: “You still mess with this kind of stuff?”

In the past, I would have welcomed such a tip because, having been vetted at least in part by another good reporter, it would be more reliable than most unsolicited tips that come my way.

But, at this point, I had to temper my response. Sadly, I sent this reply explaining, in somewhat vague terms, my situation, and why I’m not able to handle it at this time.

I do mess with these things from time to time, but circumstances are constraining me right now. I’ve just finished Round 1 of chemotherapy and immunotherapy for a cancer in my gut, Round 2 starts next week. It’s taxing my energy and attention, prompting me to put most worldly issues on the back burner for a while. So although I’m interested, I likely won’t be able to report on it right at this moment. I am sorry to be somewhat unavailable right now, but it is what it is.

I would like to be able to continue on as I would have BC (Before Cancer), but that’s not realistic.

It’s tough because things like this involve tinkering with psychological scaffolding that has been holding up my own self-image as well as my public persona, which have been taking a bit hit.

Reporting on a potential story like this is more involved, and is harder work, than blogging about my own private medical journey with an occasional appearance of other real world issues.

I’ve learned to be at least somewhat realistic about what I can do, and what I can’t. So a short “no thank you” seemed like the appropriate response in this case.

The Chemo Chronicles: July 14

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It worked for Senator McConnell, so here’s my own “proof of life” photo holding today’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser. It’s just part of my continuing effort to reassure friends, family, and online acquaintances that I’ve survived the first round of chemotherapy/immunotherapy, and I’m ready to start Round 2 next week.

But yesterday’s post about the “nadir” in each round of treatment made me realize I might have gotten off lightly this time around.

My drug infusion treatments are scheduled once a week for two consecutive weeks, with the third week off-no chemo. Then the cycle repeats.

As I understand it—and I could certainly have this wrong—the timing of my treatments means the impact of week #1 is reaching its nadir a week later as the next infusion of drugs hits and both the cancer cells and my own blood cells are being attacked. I would guess this means that, if my Round 1 had gone as scheduled, I might have felt more side effects after the second week of chemo treatment.

Instead, I ended up in the hospital as a result of an infection, which necessitated a delay in the second week. More time for my body to recover but also, if my understanding is right, more time for the cancer cells to also recover and fend off the drug attack.

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