Every night I think, “Okay, I’ll post a few words after the kids go to bed,” and every night I am turning out the lights after saying goodnight and realize I don’t have enough energy to turn on my computer, let alone compose cohesive sentences. Interferon literally is an energy robber. Its hard to explain. Its like feeling the same effort you make when you’re running a hundred yard dash and then looking down and seeing yourself take a baby step. You think, “Geez, is that all I’m doing? I was sure I was going a hundred miles an hour.”

Well, I’ve been back on it since Wednesday. The tongue medicine was the cause of the high liver enzymes and it was easy enough stopping that. Now it is on to Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Christmas off, then Friday and Saturday. Then Sunday off, and finally Monday and Tuesday and it will be OVER.

And then I fully intend to let other things occupy my mind. I just want to keep my head down and push through this last push.

There was a strange development yesterday. I had gone into the hospital for my treatment and had just finished the two hours of hydration (two hours of filling me up with fluids before the interferon), when the nurse came back to me and said there would be no treatment today.

It turns out that my blood tests came back and showed triple the normal levels of enzymes in my liver. Heck, I have no idea what liver enzymes are, but apparently they are high enough to call off my interferon treatment until Wednesday. No one can say why my enzymes suddenly peaked compared to last week’s normal reading, I suspect it has to do with the drugs I was taking for my tongue fungus. Oh joy!

So I’ve stopped the tongue drugs and am now waiting until Wednesday to see if my enzyme levels return to normal.

So now I’ve finished ten interferon treatments. Today I have number eleven. I sure have appreciated having the weekend off, but the effects still linger. I feel like I am living on a planet with double gravity. It takes so much effort just to move about. I have never felt so weak.

There are some other side effects that my doctor warned me about. One is depression. Of course, this means a level beyond just the usual joys of having cancer. It came on me yesterday, wave after wave of feelings of sadness and despair. I recognized it as the effects of the meds, but it was still a rough ride. The main feeling is one of hopelessness, as though all of my efforts will come to nothing. I keep telling myself that I have to fight each day, one day at a time. I can only hope that when the twentieth and final treatment is over, that some feeling of hope will return.

As my readers have no doubt noticed, this also saps my energy for blogging. I do have a few things going, like my next Depot Bell article and a long diatribe about the role of religion in my life during this time, but they’re not ready to share yet. I wish I had something funny to share with all of you. Please just be patient. I don’t know how much more I’ll be posting over the next two weeks.

This drug sucks, pure and simple.

This post is coming to you right from the UCSF Infusion Center. I’m sitting here with an IV in my arm and thought this time was as good as any to update you all.

As you know from my last post, I was in a funk from all of the side effects I’d been enjoying. Well, it turns out I am terrible at self diagnosing, and in this case that is good news. Specifically....

My cough is not an infection or anything serious. It is a reaction to the interferon. It stimulates my lungs and makes them think there is something to cough up. But there isn’t. My doctor says we can manage it with cough syrup until my body gets more used to the interferon. It should go away in a few days.

My radiologist gave me several different lotions to put on and around my ear. The weeping and crusting has stopped and the swelling has gone down considerably.

As for my missing taste. My doctor found that in fact I have a fungal infection on my tongue! This was causing the bad taste, not interferon. Because my surgery removed a large part of my salivary gland, and due to the radiation I received, the PH balance in my mouth is way off. This created the opportunity to get this fungus. Ugh. The good news is that it is curable with about five days of medication. I can taste things again already.

So you see, all of my conclusions as to what was causing what were all wrong. I sure am glad there are paid professionals nearby, because if it were up to me, I would have killed the patient long ago.

Just a quick update today. I’m not feeling very well. In spite of a promising start on interferon, I’ve actually been having worse symptoms as days have gone on. For example, I have a persistent hoarse cough, not sure if this is due to the medication or if it is something I caught. My muscles constantly feel like I’ve just finished a twenty mile run. My right ear has swollen up and the skin on and around it has turned scaly. Oddly, the skin around my ear scrapes off in thick chunks like warm wax. Geez, if this were a comic or a sci-fi movie, my exposure to radiation would have given me some cool mutant super powers. But here, I find that I have been converted into Big Melting Ear Man. And that is just plain not cool.

Shall I go on? I did not sleep one minute last night. That isn’t a figure of speech. I mean I laid in bed all night waiting to sleep and then my alarm went off. And now this morning, I find I have lost all sense of taste. Everything tastes like sand, except for a green apple I tried. It tasted like poison.

It is taking all of my will power not to fall into despair. And I’m trying to find some humor in the situation, but damn. This just isn’t funny.

I had my first interferon treatment Tuesday. I went in to the hospital and got hooked up to an IV. The procedure took about two and a half hours. My nurse, Michelle, was great. She explained what I might expect when I got home and for the next few days.

“Since this is your first treatment,” she sad,” your response tonight will be the strongest. You will get a fever and chills. Don’t be surprised if your fever reaches 104. But it will pass, and should be gone by the time you wake up the next day.”

I went home, filled my bath with cool water in case i needed a quick dunk in the middle of the night, and went to bed. The high fever never came, but what I did get was serious chills and shakes. I was shaking uncontrollably for almost two hours. Then it settled down.

The next morning I had muscle aches. It felt like I had just run a marathon. I could go about my business, but was moving at about 2/3rd normal speed. The second night after treatment went about the same way, but the shaking lasted for only an hour. Hopefully each day will be a little bit easier.

I remember my oncologist saying a while ago that when it comes to interferon, about one third of people tolerate it fairly well, about a third have to manage it with some lifestyle changes to accommodate the symptoms, and about one third are basically bed ridden for the year. So far it looks like I am in the first group and I couldn’t be happier about it.

I’m still feeling wiped out, and I don’t doubt this will be a challenging month, but after December 27, my dosage gets reduced to 1/3rd of what I’m taking now and I only have to take it three times a week instead of every day. At that point, I’m feeling like I can resume a relatively normal life and get back to work. This is really good news.

So that’s the update. This is a happy Depot Dad signing off for now.

Well, as the title says, this is part 2 to my story. Go read part 1 first.

This is also, perhaps, the not very interesting conclusion to my story. You see, I sat there for several minutes contemplating the roll of money. I wondered, how much could be removed without looking like any had been removed? Three hundred? Five hundred?

But it didn’t matter because after about four minutes, I simply picked up the money that I was due, and walked out of the house. I didn’t even bother to check in with the crazy guy. I just left.

And I don’t know what difference it would have made anyway. Its not like that much money was going to put us on easy street. I don’t even remember what the rest of the week looked like. No doubt we did as we always had done. We struggled through until the next pay day. And at least I walked away with my integrity intact and knowing that I did the right thing.

I’ll never know where the guy got his money, or how he went on to spend it. And I guess I don’t care. I got a good story out of it and that might be enough.