Oliver Sacks, neurologist and author of "Awakenings," wrote in The New York Review of Books about a treatment he received after his penned announcement of his terminal cancer:
"I am glad I was forewarned, for the following day (Tuesday, the seventeenth), soon after waking from the embolization-it was performed under general anesthesia-I was to be assailed by feelings of excruciating tiredness and paroxysms of sleep so abrupt they could poleaxe me in the middle of a sentence or a mouthful, or when visiting friends were talking or laughing loudly a yard away from me. Sometimes, too, delirium would seize me within seconds, even in the middle of handwriting. I felt extremely weak and inert-I would sometimes sit motionless until hoisted to my feet and walked by two helpers. While pain seemed tolerable at rest, an involuntary movement such as a sneeze or hiccup would produce an explosion, a sort of negative orgasm of pain, despite my being maintained, like all post-embolization patients, on a continuous intravenous infusion of narcotics. This massive infusion of narcotics halted all bowel activity for nearly a week, so that everything I ate-I had no appetite, but had to 'take nourishment,' as the nursing staff put it-was retained inside me.
"Another problem-not uncommon after the embolization of a large part of the liver-was a release of ADH, anti-diuretic hormone, which caused an enormous accumulation of fluid in my body. My feet became so swollen they were almost unrecognizable as feet, and I developed a thick tire of edema around my trunk. This 'hyperhydration' led to lowered levels of sodium in my blood, which probably contributed to my deliria. With all this, and a variety of other symptoms-temperature regulation was unstable, I would be hot one minute, cold the next-I felt awful. I had 'a general feeling of disorder' raised to an almost infinite degree. If I had to feel like this from now on, I kept thinking, I would sooner be dead."
After 10 days of swelling, fluid retention, delirium and discomfort, Sacks concluded:
"The hepatic artery embolization destroyed 80 percent of the tumors in my liver. Now, three weeks later, I am having the remainder of the metastases embolized. With this, I hope I may feel really well for three or four months, in a way that, perhaps, with so many metastases growing inside me and draining my energy for a year or more, would scarcely have been possible before."
Sacks' next book, "On the Move" (a memoir), is due out in May. In it, he "explores the complexities of his adult experience, including his homosexuality, which yielded a number of intense but transitory affairs; obsessions with weight lifting and motorcycles (complete with leather wardrobe); and a ravaging addiction to amphetamines."
