Our Chemo Journey

[mercyriver]

I thought I would start this a few days early, since we had a couple of busy days.

Thursday started out with the pulmonary function test. My husband hated it, but made it though.

That afternoon we made our way over to the cancer center to watch the "chemo video". We saw the chemo room, it has about 25 recliners, some TVs, a handful of other things and was FILLED to the brim with the nicest most caring nurses I have ever met.

My husband starts chemo on Monday. His brother is going to drive down twice each EP week to sit with him while he is in chemo, which means he will only do 3 days alone. Such a great thing.

We also met with the oncologist, more blood work, general checkup.

Friday we made our way back to the hospital for the port insertion. He got his in his left arm. It was fairly quick and easy. The most interesting part was finding out he has two superior vena cava's. Basically a birth defect. So they had to call the place that did the PET scan to confirm this was actually true and make sure the placed it in the correct place. A fairly rare thing, only found in .3% of the population. As far as I have read it shouldn't cause any problems, but I honestly can't find any information on the interent that I can understand and apply to my husband. So we may have to visit a cardiologist at some time soon.

So that is that. We are ready to go physically, I hope I can say the same for mentally!

Becki

[dadmo]

Good luck on Monday. It's great that we will have someone with him that he knows. He's going to be surprised how quickly he will make friends while on chemo. He may be the only tc patient but there will be a lot of people who are on a schedule that will allow him to see them regularly. Please keep us up to date on his progress.

[Margaret]

I am sending you prayers and support!

Margaret

[Scott]

Best wishes to you as the journey begins at last tomorrow.

[Apache]

do they have the portable dvd players? movies and music were huge for me. sounds like he'll have some good company also.

[mercyriver]

Yes, we do have a portable DVD player that my husband is taking.

First day went fairly well. My husband is quite worn out and was a bit light headed early.

1 day down....

Becki

[dadmo]

I'm really glad to see that the chemo got started. Congratulations on getting the first one over with.

[mercyriver]

Day two

Well day two is done! My husband is about the same as yesterday. He is pretty exauhsted. He hasn't complained about nausea today, in fact he wanted chick-fil-a for lunch. Which was good after he didn't eat much yesterday.

Two days down!

Becki

[dadmo]

Just keep that food comming. All that protein will help the body rebuild itself.

[mercyriver]

My husband finished week one last week, topped off by the Nuelasta shot on Saturday, no bone pain, but he is now having shoulder pain in the arm opposite of the injection site. They prescribed him a muscle relaxent to rule out that it might be anything else, like a blood clot.

He recieved his second Bleomycin today and so far so good.

He is quite a bit more tired then ever before but other then that, this week is seeming easy.

He actually went into work yesterday, worked 7 hours. He has a desk job so it isn't as bad as it could be. He took today off because of the effect Bynadryl has on him.

He did discover yesterday he has to time when he takes his compazine though, it made it hard for him to drive. Makes sense.

So right now he is doing his best to rest until the next round. He is eating well, though things do taste off. Watching and waiting on his hair.

Becki

[mercyriver]

Day 16

Well we made it this far and today was day 16...the day of the third dose of Bleomycin.

Last Tuesday my husband actually ended up having a reaction to the Bleo. Just a high fever. They had me bring him back just to make sure, but his blood pressure was fine. His pulse was 156. But everything else was OK.

Today, it was about the same reaction, high fever, 102.9 while on Tyelnol and his normal temprature is around 97.5, so I guess it could be looked at as even higher then that.

Either way, did more Tylenol and more Bynadryl and he slept the entire afternoon.


We also did the head shaving today, his hair was starting to make a dusting of itself on everything. It was getting messy. So we had decided to just have it taken off.

After that he went back to sleep again.

It is really getting hard to watch him go through the Bleomycin. I can't even imagine if it just keeps getting worse. It in itself is a small piece of hell for him every time.

Becki

[Scott]

I'm sorry your husband -- and you -- have to suffer along with those dying cancer cells. Keep the faith, better days are ahead.

[dadmo]

It certainly is a rough road but your 1/3 of the way home. Each round is a bit tougher but not by leaps and bounds. It's more that it wears you down quicker. Better days are comming. Spring will certainly be a season of rebirth for your family, savior every minute.

[boyce]

Bleo gets better

In my case I had identical sysmptoms form Bleo. Very high fevers (103+). After about the 5th week of Bleo the feveres were much less severe. I did do a lot of sleeping on "Bleo Tuesday", but generally staretd feeling pretty OK as of Wednesday.

The Cisplatin and Etopiside gets harder to handle as time goes on, but the bleo generally gets better. Please tell your husband to call me or reply to this note if he'd like to talk. I ws diagnosed 7 months ago this week at age 37.

An amazing, brutal, demanding and rewarding journey. Hang in there one day at a time. Tell him that we all believe in him and the he can DO it!

[mercyriver]

Actually the day after bleo always makes the world seem brighter, even if it is snowing.

Bleo days do seem to be getting worse, but it is so nice that my husband is still able to sleep it off and get up and go again the next day like nothing happened.

I know next week when he is doing the EP he won't bounce back quite the same, but it should be a better day the day after.

It is just hard because my husband has totally lost his sense of humor about Bleo, even this morning he was still frowning and not joking about anything, the complete opposite of his normal self. Even despite feeling OK.

And yes, I know one day at a time!

Becki