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29 days in

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The Northview
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By
Brenda Winter, columnist

I was 29 days into a 30-day anal cancer treatment plan.
For the most part, I’d skated through the daily radiation and two doses of chemo without incident. I was a little tired, had a little nausea, and I had a little “sunburn” from the radiation, but nothing major.
I began to wonder why I had been in such dread of traditional cancer treatment for so long if this was all there was to it.
And then came Day 29.
I woke up with a fever and placed a call to the oncologist. Fast forward 10 hours and I was an inpatient on Three East at the Avera Hospital in Sioux Falls.
It took 29 days, but the chemo and radiation overcame my body’s ability to fight off my own colon bacteria. The official diagnosis was “neutropenic colitis.”
I’ve never been sicker in my life.
I received two units of blood, massive amounts of antibiotics and gallons of IV fluids, all of which, apparently, saved me.
I spent Thursday through Sunday in the hospital, and I think I’ll spend a few more days on the couch.
I know many of you have followed my journey through various kinds of alternative cancer treatments. I’ve been to Mexico. I’ve followed a mostly vegetarian diet.
I’ve done all sorts of non-traditional treatments — none of which nearly killed me. But they also didn’t get rid of the cancer. The traditional plan that I’m following now has  caused an immediate reduction in the size of the tumor, but of course I’m not cured yet.
Nothing cures cancer in 30 days.
It’s been an interesting journey and it’s far from over. (I hope!)
Now that the 30-day treatment plan is finished, we move into the next phase which is “wait-and-see.”
They tell me the radiation will continue to shrink the tumor for several weeks. It will be at least three months before I have a CT scan to see if the treatment worked for me. The odds are 50/50.
I still really don’t know what to think of all of this. Lying in my hospital bed Friday night, staring at my IV pole holding six bags of who knows what and listening to the dear soul in the room next door vomiting her guts out, I thought, “Is this the best we’ve got? We can put man on the moon, but we can’t kill cancer without killing the person who has cancer?”
I’ve heard too many people lightly dismiss the potential impact of cancer treatment on their lives. They continue smoking, drinking and overeating, believing if they get cancer, a neat and tidy cure will be waiting for them.
Well, I already knew it, but Day 29 confirmed it — there is no neat and tidy cure for cancer.

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