My Cancer. Remission and Recovery. May 2025 Update (Patreon)

It's been about a month, so it's time to update you-all.

All efforts to stabilize my electrolytes have proven temporary. We've changed my diet, changed my prescriptions, checked for underlying causes... best guess is the radiation that killed my cancer also damaged my ability to properly absorb a couple of electrolytes, one of which helps absorption of the other.

So, at least for now, the answer is huge supplemental doses. We've hit a level where the supplements make me sick to my stomach, even taken with food, even with anti-nausea pills. It doesn't last long most days-- 30 to 45 minus-- but it's no fun. Also, my mouth nonstop tastes like metal.

Even then, sometimes I get an imbalance, which range from 'It's hard to get moving today," to "You are at high risk for a heart attack at any moment." Thankfully the former is a lot more common than the later... but none of those lapses come with a lot of warning.

This makes me a flake on anything that needs to be a specific day and time. I try, but if that hour is a bad moment, in a bad day, I just can't get up and go. I hate it. My family and friends are very understanding (and so is my therapist, thank goodness), but it's hard. AND it makes super-short deadline projects difficult... but thankfully not impossible. I just have to make SURE I don't depend on crunching through everything in a frenzy of writing and editing in the last day or two... since I might happen to be unable to do much in the last day or two.

In most cases, this long after radiation, any healing that is going to happen has, so this may just be my new normal. There are exceptions, and I can hope I am one, but if I want to live a life, right now this is the life available to me. I', slowly trying to reassuming something like a productive life and rebuild my career, so it's to be expected there are surprised and adjustments to be made along the way.

And, as they come, and as I am able, I'll make them.

I'm still struggling to get a follow-up MRI scheduled. The challenges are part an over-stressed health system, part my inability to spend 40 hours a week on the phone, and part financial. despite my best efforts we have a couple of bills in collections now, and while no ER will turn me away even if I owe them money, follow-up MRIs are in a different category. And try as we might to get ahead. we have what feels like a never-ending stream of expenses still hitting us. Bills can take years to go through insurance, and then an appeal, and then a new amount, and then a demand for itemized expenses, and then request for assistance programs, and then attempts to modify payment plans...

Those steps are important they've saved me tens of thousands of dollars... maybe more than a hundred thousand. But eventually the bill comes due, so LONG after you got scanned, or drugged, or probed, you get to find out how much that is actually going to cost you. And... getting bills of unknown size at unknown times two or three years after the service is hard to budget for.

As always, I appreciate ALL my paying Patron. You folks are a big part of me still being here. If anyone feels moved to help even more, you can do so here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-owen-kc-stephens-fight-cancer

(I wish I were a cat. Cats don't pay bills.)