Blue Balls

Listen to this reflection by playing the video below or continue down the page to read the full text version.

Chemotherapy is a battle for your soul. It will suck the life out of you while it is trying to save or extend your life. Our care team was very upfront that Amy’s treatment was palliative in nature, not curative. The goal was to extend her life and improve the quality of her life for as long as possible. Her particular chemo cocktail was very aggressive and only given to younger patients who could tolerate the toxicity of the drug combination.

Amy chose her sister Mary to walk this journey with her. I set aside my desire to walk every step with her knowing that Amy chose Mary for a very specific purpose, to provide some sassiness and attitude to her chemotherapy sessions.

Her treatment called for chemotherapy once every two weeks with a portable unit to be carried for an additional 46 hours. Our routine would be for Amy, Mary and myself to see the doctor and review her blood work and the trend in her cancer markers. It was at this time that we would hit the doctor with our questions in rapid succession to make sure we understood her treatment plan, its’ side effects, and the goals. I would then walk with Amy and Mary over to the chemotherapy area and then return home to work for a few hours before they would return.

Her first few chemo treatments were pretty rough. Lots of nausea and diarrhea (or Dee-Arrrh-E-Ah as she liked to call it). Amy subsequently came up with a plan to help her weather the treatments better both mentally and physically.

One of the more annoying side effects for her was the cramping she got in her hands during the administration of one of the drugs. Her solution was to order stress balls off Amazon and bring them to chemo. When it came time for the administration of that particular drug, she would squeeze the stress balls to keep her hands from cramping. It was only when I received a sympathy card from the chemo nurses that I learned that her reputation for squeezing blue balls was legendary among the nurses. I can only imagine the jokes Amy and Mary must have made to earn that reputation.

Another trick to pass the time while at chemo was for her to come up with sassy thank you notes to Chemo. Modeled after Jimmy Fallon’s thank you notes on Friday nights, she would come up with one liners to thank chemo for her various side effects.

• Thank you chemo for shit that smells worse than a trucker’s at an all night diner.
• Thank you chemo for giving me the taste buds of a 5th grader and ruining my love of wine.
• Thank you chemo for providing new stylish accessories for my wardrobe.

She and her sister would write out these thanks you’s on small Post-it notes and then crumple them up and toss them into a small garbage can to kill time during her treatment. I was even able to participate one week when I was filling in for Mary while she was out of town.

These snarky exercises helped Amy deal with the fact that she would be on chemo indefinitely. Our doctor never officially defined indefinitely, but we prodded him on the subject enough to know that this meant she would be on chemo the rest of her life. People would ask us how long Amy would be on chemo. When we answered “Indefinitely” the implications rarely registered and they would sometimes ask the same question weeks or months later.

Now, when I envision her sitting in her chair at chemo squeezing her blue balls, I burst with pride at Amy’s courage and sense of humor under such daunting circumstances. I am humbled and awed by her positivity and spirit.

Keep squeezing those blue balls Love.