Started back to work

[Volfan]

This last week I started back and it felt great.
I was able to work my 4 10's all week. It felt great to be tired from doing something than laying around the house all day.
Next week will probably be a bit more challenge since it's chemo week.
I want to brag a little bit about how great my employer has been through all of this.
From the time I was diagnosed with cancer work has been supportive and let me off without any repercussions for anything I need. As a matter of fact my boss came to me and told me I was hurting my paycheck by not taking the disability insurance the company provides. I was missing a lot of work at first with all the doctor visits early on.
The company was more than willing to let me work part time the week of chemo but keep me designated as a full time employee so I'm still eligible for disability if needed.
If my boss asked me once he asked 10 times the first day how I was holding up.
One thing I have found going back to work in a blue collar workplace is the jokes are never ending if you have rectal cancer. We all turn into high school age teenage boys. And I'll be honest it's nice to laugh and joke about it.

[Maggie Nell]

Well, don't be a grinch - tell us some of the jokes then!

[fumaros]

Yeah tells us a few. Also, I am glad you are at a job that is so supportive. It's a blessing.

[Lee]

Sounds like you've got a great employer and boss. That is wonderful. Take it one day at a time and see how it goes with chemo.

Best to you & good luck next week.

Lee

[JudiB]

Great that you are back at work with such a supportive employer. It must be a great distraction from all this stuff... good to joke with work mates... helps to see the lighter side sometimes whilst we plod on through the chemo! I believe that good friends and a sense of humour truly help us maintain a good morale and keep us feeling positive..although we are allowed to feel "down" from time to time as it goes with the territory!
Sending best wishes for your chemo and hoping that work continues to go well. This is tough chemo so listen to your body and don't push yourself too hard!
Xxxx

[Volfan]

At first most of the guys didn't know what to say or how to act. I told them to act just like we did before diagnosis and I'm fine with answering any questions. The first thing I told them is don't feel sorry for me. I've been fortunate with my reaction to the chemo. The worst thing for me is fatigue and stomach issues for a few days after. I tell them if you want to feel sorry for someone it's that 30 year old mom getting chemo the first time for breast cancer scared to death. That seemed to break the ice. I can't count the number of guys that walk up with a glove on wanting to know if I wanted my butthole cancer checked. That's what we call it. My tumor is only about 1-1 1/2 inches from the butthole. This seems to fascinate them.
The guys got a kick out of the story of the first time I saw a cancer Doc after diagnosis.
My first appointment was with a colorectal surgeon. I was having bad pain in the butt area. Just assumed it was the cancer. After the Doc talking with my wife and I he wanted to check the butt area out. He said I shouldn't be hurting from the cancer it sounded like something else.
They hand me a gown and tell me to drop my pants. When he comes back he pulls out this platform on a half bed and tells me to put my knees on it and lean over. At this point my knees go up and my head goes down. When he finished adjusting my head was lower than my knees and my ass was eye level with the Doc standing. Felt like I was auditioning for a role in a porn movie at this point.
He took some instrument and inserted it and started blowing air inside me. At this point the guys start with all kinds of comments with words I won't use here. The pain ended up being an anal fissure I got during the colonoscopy. That was truly a pain in the ass to heal up and why my oncologist waited to start avastin until it healed.
We laugh joke and cut up about this experience my wife and I is going through. Like I told the guys before we left work for July 4 holidays when they felt bad I was going to be on chemo bag on the 4th. Don't ever feel bad for me on chemo. Chemo is saving my life right now. Imagine if chemo never came about. Cancer sucks but chemo is wonderful.

[Maggie Nell]

When I was a kid, I loved reading the "I am Joe's Body" series in the Readers
Digest @ 1960s-70s.

Never read "I am Joe's Butthole", but I think you might get syndication......

The whole butthole fascination this is cosmic: apparently aliens travel gazillions
of light years to be able to shine a probe up human bottoms.....your work
colleagues may not be entirely human. Just sayin'