Category Archives: blog

blog, cancer, chemotherapy, cross country, ovarian cancer, ovarian cancer blog, running

Get out of the Car

September 28, 2014 kymbalk 1 Comment

Wet, muddy, and humid. Not-so-perfect conditions for the weekly cross country meet, and yet the parking lot was packed and the runners were enthusiastically warming up. I spent a good 10 minutes motivating myself to leave the climate controlled car to find the Mid-Pacific tent of runners and fans. One of my students, after asking why I was wearing white shorts, thanked me for coming out to see the meet. (I have no excuse for white shorts in rain and mud-none.)

photo (1) — Kaiser High School Cross Country Meet

Before 8 am, most of the runners were soaked and muddy and the races hadn’t even started yet. I was surprised how cheerful and full of laughter they were. I told my son afterwards that I always love talking to Student X because she laughs at all my jokes. His response: “Yeah, she laughs at a lot of things that aren’t funny.”

The meet today comes on the muddy heels of a really junk week. I realized that I have thrown up more in the last 4 months than I have in my entire life. On Tuesday, I spent most of the day in the hospital getting IV fluids, Potassium, and Phenergen, trying to get my system back in balance from the previous chemo. I rallied for Wednesday and was back in the classroom again. I wasn’t actively vomiting, so I figured I should be at work. It is not just a duty concept that brings me back to school every day. Today’s events really captured it for me. Despite their own “Struggle Bus” of conditions, kids just get out of the car and get going. No one complained, they just did. That is what energizes me!

Even though I see them in the classroom every day, it was fun to see them overcoming the elements and enjoying each other’s company.

Monday, it’s back to Physics!

blog, boot camp, cancer, chemotherapy, ovarian cancer

Boot Camp Lessons for Cancer

September 20, 2014 kymbalk 7 Comments

diana — Wedding of the Century-Prince Charles and Princess Diana

A long, long, long, long time ago…I went through military boot camp (Basic Cadet Training-fondly known as “Beast”) at the United States Air Force Academy. It was the summer of 81, and while Princess Diana and Prince Charles were getting married, I was in the foothills of Colorado Springs enduring the most rigorous training program of my life. Whilst (I love that word!) Anglophiles were glued to their television’s watching the “wedding of the century,” I was doing push-ups, pull-ups, and running through the Obstacle Course and Confidence Course in Jack’s Valley, Colorado.

Every day, we woke at the crack of dawn and we pressed through the day until taps at 9 pm. It was the most intensive time of my life-forcing my body to do things that were not in my wheelhouse. (I was an Erudite in a Dauntless world= for fans of the book Divergent! #Divergent #Veronica Roth) I spent my high school days in ballet, drill team, and AP classes, but then I was thrown into a world where walking across a 4×4 beam, one story above the ground, was the only measure of success.

photo-4 — Jack’s Valley, CO Summer of 81-Kym Roley

Why did I not die?

Beam — Building “confidence” in Jack’s Valley! Try walking from one side to the other untethered!

How do you get through Boot Camp? How do you get through Cancer and its treatments? How does anyone get through the monumental challenges of their life?

1. Find good friends to share the ride on the Struggle Bus with you. Life is more fun when you’re singing ~~The Wheels on the Bus~~ songs together. My Academy classmates are still my friends ~~100~~ 33 years later. Today, my friends and family help me laugh and forget the hard reality of what I’m going through.

2. Every day-get up, get dressed, get going. Get through. Day 1 may just be getting one foot to go in front of the other. By Day 20, you can chuckle at how little you could do on Day 1 . Your muscles learn what you expect of them. If you expect nothing, they give you nothing.

3. Give it your best…your best will get better. In the 1997 movie Gattaca, the character Vincent is asked how he accomplished such a remarkable feat, and his answer was…”I never saved anything for the swim back.” Give it all! You can’t be thinking about the next lap or the next obstacle. Give everything to each moment!

4. Believe in God’s plan(s)-Plans to give you a hope and a future! Jeremiah 29:11 There is a plan for you. You just have to trust that there is a plan.

5. Get past the bad days by reminding yourself that “Everything will be okay in the end: If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.” -John Lennon There are days you wish you could just forget, where nothing goes right, but that is not the end of the story.

Finally….. My memories of that time (and now this battle with cancer) have crystallized, and while they include the struggles and disappointments, ultimately, the successful finishing of difficult obstacles is what sticks with me.

parade — USAFA-Class of 81 Acceptance Parade

#NED, blog, cancer, chemotherapy, health, radiation

No Evidence of Disease (#NED)

September 12, 2014 kymbalk 8 Comments

The words that every cancer patient wants to hear-No Evidence of Disease! I was sitting on the exam room table when the nurse came in with the report and flopped it open for me to see. At first, I had no idea what I was seeing, but then, the words jumped off the page-NED!

Radiologist’s Report

A special girl, Morgan, brightened my day with a bouquet of Star Lillies. And yes, I want to keep “filing batter” for a long time.

What’s next for me? Three more chemos to knock out any remaining or developing cancer cells. Then, monthly (and by “monthly” they actually mean every three weeks) chemo for a year. I still have a long haul ahead of me. Blood pressure is too high (from chemo, of course) and platelets keep dipping (from chemo, of course), WBC (White Blood Count) is all over the place, and RBC (Red Blood Count) is dipping into transfusion land.

BUT, I am blessed! I feel lucky every day I get into work and am able to do my job and see those students. I’ve been through the ringer-surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, but because of friends like you, my battery is recharged. I can officially say I am a two time cancer survivor!

blog, cancer, chemotherapy, health, ovarian cancer, ovarian cancer blog, PET scan

Pet scan time-“Eyes to Thighs”

September 5, 2014 kymbalk 5 Comments

So you want a Pet?

No, not that kind…this kind…a Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Scan.

Tomorrow is my six month scan. We are hoping not to see any areas light up this time! Today (Thursday) is the prep day. Starving the body of sugar and focusing on low carb eating.

A day of eating this…

Genoa Salame and Provolone Cheese-$4.99 at Safeway

And this…

Tomorrow (Friday) is just watery water…Nothing else!

Then, they inject the radioactive tracer…and allow it to circulate in the bloodstream.

One hour of sitting “Quietly”…no music, books, talking, moving, etc. They really mean it when they say sit quietly. After 1 hour, the dye has had a chance to circulate through the whole body (organs and tissue) and you’re ready for the scan to begin. Any areas of ~~hypermetabolic~~ hungry cancer cells, will be activated and light up during the scan.

Then, the tube. It like a crystal ball to look at your innards.

And then waiting…for results…till Monday-an exercise in ~~patience i~~mpatience. What makes you impatient? How do you cope?

clock-clip-art-4ib4BM5ig — Seeing the doctor Monday after school.

blog, cancer, chemotherapy, health, ovarian cancer, school

Struggle Bus

August 30, 2014 kymbalk 5 Comments

Admit it…there are some days that you start the day off on the Struggle Bus to Struggle City. Wednesday was that day for me. I woke up nauseated, but it was too late in the morning to call in sick and I had a full day of teaching ahead. I asked my husband if he thought it was something I ate. His response: “Kym, you just had chemo, so no, I think it’s the chemo.” I always try to ascribe the bad days to something else…virus, fatigue, food poisoning, etc. but it just keeps coming back to the fact that I am putting poison in my body in order to fight the cancer. Then, I spend most of the next week fighting the poison that is fighting the cancer. Like the shampoo bottle says: Lather, rinse, repeat.

It just doesn’t seem right.

In English classes, we teach that there is no story unless there is a conflict. Something has to happen to the main character in order to make the story interesting, and unfortunately, as the protagonist for our own individual story we mostly don’t get to choose the conflict. Every time I check social media, I see so many battles that my friends are fighting…injury, injustice, illness, heartache, senseless crime, etc. My battle is unique to me, but I know we’ve all felt that feeling-How will I get through this day?

Start with the Cancer PlayList

Dig Deep. Going through something life changing requires all your personal resources. Reach to your faith, your friends, your family. Wednesday, I reached out to my friend, and she was there. She is going through her own battle with debilitating back pain, but she searched all over the office just to find me some ginger! I had one hour before class was to start to get control of the situation. I was calculating distances to the closest bathroom in case of emergency vomitting or worse-as one teacher-contract I had so succinctly put it-“explosive diarrhea.”

Whenever I start to feel sorry for myself, I think of the sad young man I see weekly in the chemo room. He speaks to no one and he appears to be young, mid-20’s. His answers to the nurses are monosyllabic. His agony is evident on his face each time he comes in. His mom comes in with him and does what she can do to ease the suffering. It just brings to mind how unfair and indiscriminate cancer actually is.

We all have conflict-some big and some small-but all achingly real. Our lives have so many pitfalls along the way that the only real solution is to reach out to each other to create a resolution to our own story. I couldn’t do this without you!

blog, cancer, chemotherapy, health, ovarian cancer, ovarian cancer blog

Building a tower!

August 23, 2014 kymbalk 5 Comments

This week marked two weeks of school and crossing over the halfway point in chemo. It reminded me of building straw towers in physics class. Students started out the week with 50 straws and 2 meters of tape and were tasked with building a tower that could support a golf ball on the top. The best towers had a strong base and a lot of support. Some towers never made it off the ground: they were flimsy and poorly thought out. The winning towers were the ones in which the builders created alternate plans when encountering disappointment.

Screen Shot 2014-08-22 at 5.39.11 PM — Straw Tower to support a golf ball.

I want to model my school year on those successful towers and teams. Each week my actions need to mimic the successful characteristics of the soaring towers! It needs to be carefully planned with lots of support, and a fallback plan if things don’t go the way I intend. Last weekend, I think my tower went too high. I pushed myself a little too hard and paid the price over the weekend with a brutal headache and record breaking vomitting. I was reminded of Buster’s quote from Arrested Development, “Yes, I was flying. But a little too close to sun.”

This week I had Back-to-School night on Thursday followed by chemo on Friday. Week two has been better because I know the students now and everyone is getting back into the mechanism that is school. My son’s Cross Country coach says it takes two weeks of training before the initial pain subsides. Well, I have completed two weeks of training, and I am optimistic that Monday will be my best day yet! My lesson plans are ready and alternate routes are planned as well.

Screen Shot 2014-08-22 at 6.52.59 PM — Fortunately by Remy Charlip

The test of my chemo/work schedule will be this weekend as I deal with the side effects of Carboplatin/Gemzar/Avastin. Fortunately, we had a great meal delivered by some friends at church and I had a delicious nap this afternoon. So that helped mitigate the lengthy chemo process.

One of my favorite books growing up as a child was Fortunately by Remy Charlip. For every bad thing that happened to Ned (the main character), there was an equal and opposite good thing (Newton’s 3rd Law!). “Fortunately, Ned was invited to a surprise party. Unfortunately, the party was a thousand miles away. Fortunately, a friend loaned Ned an airplane. Unfortunately, the motor exploded….etc.”

Fortunately for me, I have some wonderful family and friends and coworkers, so I am expecting great results from this year! What’s your favorite childhood book that still speaks to you and motivates you?

Screen Shot 2014-08-22 at 6.55.26 PM — Ned, being chased by a tiger…Fortunately, he can dig!

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blog, cancer, chemotherapy, health, ovarian cancer, school, Uncategorized

Won’t you take me back to school-patient/teacher

August 16, 2014 kymbalk 6 Comments

Won’t you take me back to school…I need to learn the Golden Rule. This song was rolling through my head this morning as I drove to school. Remember the Moody Blues? It feels good to be back to work and teaching once again. Students rolled in on Tuesday, and their energy motivated me as it always does.

~~Fall~~ Summer is in the air at Mid-Pacific! After a week of preparation, the real work began on Tuesday. In addition to making sure students are ready for college, I have the added challenge of Friday chemos.

The students are like a shot of adrenaline to the system! One of the things that I love about students is that you always know exactly how they feel about things. There is no holding back!

photo copy 3 — Student tables at Watase Courtyrad

After a week of school, I am exhausted but happy. I went to bed before 9 o’clock every night and up by 515 each morning. Add the 45 minute commute both ways, and it is a challenge, even for a healthy person. I know that next Friday will be the real test of my mettle. Mega chemo (Carboplatin, Gemzar, and Avastin) followed by a all-too-short weekend and then back to school on Monday.

Today after reviewing Scientific Notation with my students, one of the boys said, “I finally get this.” That is enough to keep bringing me back every Monday-chemo or not!

blog, cancer, chemotherapy, health, ovarian cancer, TV shows

Back in the Saddle-Getting the job done

August 1, 2014 kymbalk 3 Comments

Weekly reality TV shows start each week with a recap of the past weeks’ episodes including the most dramatic moments.

So, if you are just turning in to this show, here’s what happened in previous episodes of “Kym’s Ovarian Cancer.” After successfully beating Ovarian Cancer in 2012, I received an ominous phone call from my docctor. My blood cancer marker had unexpectedly doubled. To be specific, it was February 14th, and I was driving on the H3 from one side of the island to the other. When the doctor told me the news and indicated that the cancer was probably back, I had to pull over to the side of the road to take that information in. That was easily the worst Valentine’s Day ever!

Screenings and pre-surgery appointments followed. My exploratory (never-sounds-good-when-you-say-it) surgery was on March 10th. The affected area this time was the peri-aortic lymph nodes. This is apparently a dicey area in which to operate because the area is filled with a tricky vascular network. Four weeks post surgery, I began a series of 25 daily radiation treatments (I think we landed on 4500 CentriGreys) concentrated in the peri-aortic lymph node area. About a week after that was finished, we started on chemo. I was labeled Platinum sensitive, so Carboplatin was chosen again, along with Gemzar and Avastin. All medication is delivered via a port that has been surgically implanted in my chest wall. Fast forward through several failed WBC’s (White Blood Count) and unfortunate vomiting parties, we made it to July 4th! We are again playing the low can your white count go? Then there was the Give yourself a Shot Day (Neulasta category), If you were producing this as a show, it would make an excellent storyline with a huge cast of characters and a dramatic plot. Maybe Christina Applegate will play me. Who will play you?

In this week’s episode of Kym’s Ovarian Cancer, we get a major dose of fun! The first chemo of the cycle is all of the meds to include Carboplatin, Gemzar, and Avastin. The prelude is a nice fat bag of anti-nausea meds. Today, they’ve added an extra bag of anti-nausea meds. (Today’s total of IV bags was 7: 2 bags of hydration, 1 bag of steroids/antinausea, 1 bag Carbo, 1 bag Gemzar, 1 bag Avastin, and a bag of Phenergen.) Next Friday will be a few bits of steroids and Gemzar. After the next treatment, I’ll be halfway though chemo. This will be a major milestone. Despite the fact that I am not even halfway now, I am still ecstatic! Why? I am going back to work next week! I am beyond excited about seeing the students and my fellow teachers. Just to be normal again (even with these Friday blips) is one of the things I am most looking forward to (did it hurt when I ended that sentence with a preposition?) On March 7, the last day I worked before my surgery, I went outside and the beautiful Mid Pac campus and the sweet Manoa air almost made me cry (Seinfeld’s Newman once said this about Hawaii…”The air is so dewy sweet that you don’t have to lick the stamps.”)

My favorite day of school is always the first day of school. It’s like the first hole on the golf course, no mistakes and everything is awesome (Check out the Lego movie). I predict now it will be a great first day. The chemo will drag on into October, so will keep the spirits up by hanging around fun people who make me laugh. Maintaining that energy will be the largest problem through the fall terms . Side effects from chemo can last up to 6 months, so even if you’re done, you’re not done.

SPOILER ALERT: In future episodes, Kym will go on maintenance chemo. PET scan will occur in November to see if these meds are arresting the growth of the tumors. Watch the hilarity ensue!