I once read somewhere that a dog’s sense of smell can be up to 10,000 times as strong as that of a human. And although our own sense of smell may have been diminished over eons of evolution it is still strong enough to evoke memories with a whiff of something bringing us back to a different time or place. Even in our sub-conscience we may smell something and not remember consciously the memory, but it is never-the-less there. It is with this in mind that for the rest of my life when I smell the scent of a certain brand of flush-able cleansing wipes that I will feel the nausea rising in my throat. It will always remind me of the stench of cancer and excretion, especially that of the past 3 weeks.
Things were going fairly well when we returned to Hawai’i from Mexico. Len was feeling better; had no pain and was finding his energy increasing. It was those feelings of health that lead him to being more Cavaleir with the abatement of his cancer. So, unknown to me he went out and ate 1/2 a pineapple. The next day he had diarrhea, which lead to hemorrhoids. Huge hemorrhoids that left him bed-ridden. He lived in terror of having a bowel movement. A few days later he became constipated and exasperated the problem by straining. His hemorrhoids were now huge. How I don’t know, but he talked me into giving him an enema. It was the first and hopefully the last time I will ever have to do this. It was everywhere. Even before this, on a good day there would be excretion all over the toilet. On a bad day it was on the floor and in his clothes. Now as I rinsed him off in the shower it was still coming out of him.
About 10 days ago, unable to deal with the pain any longer, we went to a walk-in clinic. We left with one prescription for some suppositories to shrink the swelling and another for Vicodin to deal with the pain. Mercifully he was now almost pain free. But no drugs are without their side effects. The Vicodin altered his personality. He became miserable and tyrannical with sudden outbursts of rage. He lashed out with vicious verbal attacks over nothing. In the mornings, before he got up and needed the pain medication I would tell him how he was while under its influence. For the past week he has apologized every night to me for having to deal with him like this. This has been the worst 3 weeks since he was diagnosed with colon cancer last August. I have learned my way around Hawai’i as I drive to and from his many treatments with him lying down on the back seat. I go to bed exhausted every night from looking after both him in his invalid state and doing everything to keep things running here. I told him that my only joy over the past few weeks was going to bed at night and finding some peace in sleep for a few hours.
Our plan was to get a CEA test at the beginning of April, but with all of the inflammation in his colon we knew that we would get a false positive reading. After many agonizing discussions we have decided to go back to Mexico this coming Sunday. There we will get another MRI and also see a proctologist to decide whether or not to have something done about Lennie’s hemorrhoids. One of our neighbors here in Hawai’i said that her father had colon cancer and the worst part of the whole ordeal was his hemorrhoids. My doctor once told me that medically speaking an external hemorrhoid was considered the second most acute pain in the world; the first being passing a kidney stone. I told Lennie yesterday that no matter how painful this has been, maybe some good has come out of it. For one thing he has done a lot of sleeping and sleeping can be a time of great healing for your body. We also found Nalani who owns the Hawai’i Laser Center. She uses an Erchonia cold laser machine to treat people for pain and healing of tissues. The results have been good so far and despite his hemorrhoid pain, Lennie is looking amazingly well.
I expect to be back in Hamilton by Easter. Lennie will probably be with me and we will continue our healing journey there. As I mentioned before he is now clinically stage 3 which is down from his original stage 4. We are hoping that the MRI that we get next week will show his lymph nodes to be clear which will mean that all that will be left is the original mass in his rectum and that mass has shrunk greatly. As a footnote, Lennie’s bowel movements are now almost back to normal. He has survived 2 Tsunamis and untold near death occurrences from both disease and danger. He truly has been blessed with a Guardian Angel looking over his shoulder.
Kathryn