Okay this is showing my age here (even though I was just a kid at the time, I swear!) but do you all remember those old Hair Club for men commercials where the president Sy Sperling would confidently state, "Remember, I'm not only the Hair Club President, but I'm also a client." However, corny this was, I have always thought this was an important idea and with my personal journey through neuropathy, I think it is vital! Why you may ask? This is simple, I promise you, if someone is not dealing with neuropathy themselves, or taking care of someone with neuropathy, they will never understand what we are going through!
My own story began about ten years ago when I was diagnosed with late stage testicular cancer that took several re-occurring courses of chemotherapy (home as well as at MD Anderson) as well as a life saving aortic resection and retroperitoneal lymph node dissection (RPLND) surgery at the Mayo Clinic (tumors had wrapped around my aorta and been cemented to it through chemo, yay!). Now, I love my oncologist, but I remember when during my first course of chemotherapy I lost my hearing in my left ear. His initial response was congratulations you are still alive! So needless to say, when the neuropathy hit (well and once I was told this is normal, ha!), I quickly realized that some self education would be required! Because of this journey, I have also come to realize that however great your physicians may be (I have and have had some incredible ones), nobody can truly take care of your health but YOU! I remember the first time I went to MD Anderson a great hospital in Houston, Texas dedicated solely to the treatment of cancer, they had color coded areas on each floor that you would be directed too. While this may have been great for helping a large amount of sick people find where they are supposed to go, I used to sit there and think "wow, we are just cattle or sheep being herded from one location to the next". I began to realize that no matter how great these people taking care of us were, we are one of many (probably too many) they were tasked with taking care of. I decided I would TAKE control of my own condition. I have an JD and MBA which taught me to research very well and this helped me find the treatment I needed and gave me the resources I needed to support this journey.
So this is what I did with the rest of my cancer treatment and I can honestly say, it is a big reason I am still here to be able to talk to you today. It has been no different with my neuropathy, with both however, it is all about living with the symptoms and not letting the enemy (cancer or neuropathy) win. The goals of these articles will be to share with you, some of the lessons and I have learned with my neuropathy journey! We also have a community forum for you to interact with me and others to further this journey of your own!
OMG I SO REMEMBER THAT COMMERCIAL!