"Mr. Foster, are you really sick?"

E-mail to this blog is more than interesting. Sometimes it is mind-boggling. I get this e-mail: "Mr. Foster, are you really sick? I read your blog and you don't sound sick. I can barely walk from Sutent. This is not as easy as you make it sound."

H'mmm, perhaps for two years I have been fooling myself.  I called my oncologist. "Am I sick?"

He seemed very puzzled. "What do you mean are you sick?"

"Do I really have cancer?"

"Of course you do." Now he seemed very put out.

"Advanced kidney cancer? Stage Four?"

"Of course, though I am wondering if you have lost your mind."

"I lost that years ago and the brain mets aren't helping and there's this fellow who thinks I'm just some kind of cyber freak, so I just thought I would call you, be sure."

Long sigh. "Leave me alone."

So there you go. According to the best opinion in Augusta, Georgia, I do in fact have kidney cancer, stage four, which means, regardless of how I feel, I am sick. To remind me, they have me take a regimen of drugs, including 50 mg of Sutent and steroids and dilantin, and blood pressure meds, and some kind of high powered nausea medicine...just so I won't call the doc and ask him if I am sick.

Do I ever act sick? Now that is a loaded question. Sometimes I act sick just to get a little sympathy. I put on my puppy dog face and say things to Sherry like, "Oh, I don't feel well." She walks over, touches my face (the way my mother once did) and says, "I'm sorry." Hey, I said a little sympathy.

Sometimes I get some serious nausea, mainly dry heaves. That qualifies as sick. And other times I am so fatigued I can barely hold my head up. That may just qualify as an excuse to take another nap, but according to the big medical book in the living room, mix fatigue with cancer and you are, well, sick. Mix fatigue with a glass of red wine and you get a really, really, really good nap. I like to think of basic sickness the way one may think of a wad of clay. Work it enough and after a while you have something.

I get pretty sick from worry  before I go in for an MRI and CT scan. My too often glass-mostly-empty attitide tells me this time they are going to find something that says I am more than sick, that I am  deathly ill. At the moment, far as I know,  I am not deathly ill, but if that happens the  gentleman who asks if I am sick will be the first to know. I hate keeping blog readers in suspense.

But, this minute, I do not feel sick. Nor do I wish to feel sick. The way I avoid feeling sick, I think, is with lots of drug induced naps and a Warrior's attitude. But truth be told, I am sick...and tired of being sick.

Man, do I wish neither he nor I were sick.

But I would act sick occasionally anyway. I have become addicted to a little sympathy.

"Kiss my brow, darling, and make it all feel better."

Comments

[Robbie Edwards]

Dear Dave,
Just wanted you to know that after I read your blog the other day I layed in bed that night and I prayed for you to have a supernatural touch from Our Creator, to have an easy day and to strengthen your body and to give even more grace to you. I believe I have read that you have not prayed for healing but others have prayed for you. Well I am someone who will lift you up as often as the Lord brings you to mind. As you know His resources are unlimited. I appreciate your blog as I believe it is an inspiration to all of us living with cancer. Hope my comments are not offesive.

Robbie(female 52 ARCC