On and On

Finally on Wednesday the last grasps of chemotherapy fell away and I felt normal again. I am so blessed to have nearly three complete weeks where I feel mostly normal before the next round kicks off. When Chris went through treatment, it was not at all unusual for him to just start feeling human again when the next round started the cycle all over again. I am so in awe of the strength of Chris, Jennie, Laura and so many other cancer patients that have endured treatments so much more intense than what I have to deal with.
Nurse Bev and I have been exchanging emails over the last week; it doesn't look like they are going to let me change the start date of my next chemo cycle. The doctors like the schedule the way that it is and aren't willing to change it. They are going to add in one new anti-nausea medication to replace Zofran and Kytril. The new medicine is Emend: I take one pill an hour before the first treatment and then another pill on the two days following the last injection. During my four days of chemotherapy, I will only have Phenergan to deal with nausea. I felt so bad the last round, I am really nervous about going into this next round with less nausea medicine on board. I have no option other than to have faith and enjoy the next 16 days.

Post chemo observations

• This round just isn't willing to go away, it is Sunday night and I am still sick to my stomach. The only thing that I have been able to hold down today is Rita's chicken and dumplings. I just tried to snack on some swiss cheese, which I dearly love, but couldn't even get one bite down.
• I am seriously considering asking if I can change my next round to start on Monday 11/12 rather than Tuesday 11/13/07. I have to be ready to go back to work on Monday the 19th because the other salaried person in the maintenance shop is on vacation that week. At this point I am not sure that I can work all day tomorrow and we have established that each round is going to be worse than the last one.
• I am not going to stop treatment now, but if the first round would have been as tough as this round of chemotherapy has been, there wouldn't have been a round two.
• I have to work on finding something good to drink (and drink) next round. I really need to drink a gallon of liquids each day. Soft drinks certainly are not the option and I just can't drink that much water. I can easily drink a gallon a day if I drink orange juice or apple cider, but I am sure that isn't a good thing for my blood sugar and weight. If anyone knows of a real good iced tea, please let me know so I can try that.
• I am going to try to add in some soups next round, it was just too tough to choke much else down last week. The Rubinos make some awesome soup at their restaurant, so I may buy half a gallon before the November round and see how that sets on my stomach.
  
• Thaks to everyone for your thoughts and prayers.
  

At least this round is done

This is sure some kind of fun: blinding headaches on Wednesday and Thursday and severe nausea on Thursday and Friday. The whole week had bad exhaustion. I am just glad that I have three weeks to forget this round, if it started back up on Tuesday I am not at all sure that I would go.
Nurse Bev replied to my email yesterday and told me the they could prescribe Emend next round instead of the Kytril to see if that helps. She also told me that I could increase my Phenergan dose from one every six hours ton one every four hours.

What a round

Dr. Miller was right, each round is tougher than the last one. The headaches on Tuesday and Wednesday were quite intense so I checked with the nurse this morning. I had already stopped taking Zofran for nausea and she said that the Kytril they gave me for nausea is just as bad as Zofran when it comes to headaches. So now I am down to one of the three original nausea medicines that they prescribed for me. On top of that the exhaustion factor has been very high. Am I really going to do two more rounds?

Whew

This round of chemo has started off with a bang. I was at Brown Cancer Center for 5 hours for my treatments today and the last hour or two I was freezing to death, they had to bring me a blanket. When I got home I started burning up (this hasn't gone away yet) and tossed my lunch. I slept for the last 5 1/2 hours and am getting ready to hit the bed again.

There was a country song on the radio a couple of months ago with the refrain "and I thought I was tough" - how appropriate. Nite all.

Hump Day

I am officially over the hump, today started my fourth round of chemo. The mind is a strange and wonderful thing, I got nauseous today as soon as I walked in Brown Cancer Center. Dr. Miller confirmed what I already was pretty sure of, each round of chemo is going to be harder than the last. At least I didn't have to deal with the low blood pressure problems today, I skipped my blood pressure medicine this morning and did much better. I had a new nurse today and he left something to be desired, he poked around for about five minutes trying to located a vein in my hand today before he gave up and stuck the needle into my forearm.
You have to love insurance companies, Anthem still hasn't paid anything on my first three rounds of chemo. I called them today and they promised that I had met all of my out of pocket expenses for this and it wasn't going to cost me anything, but at the moment I am still in hock to University of Louisville Hospital for $60,000 for the first three rounds of chemo.
Just for the record: chemo sucks!

Memories

Eleven years ago today, my son Christopher died. Sometimes the pain of the loss is unbearable. No matter what cancer or anything else has in store for me, I will never do anything as difficult as burying Chris.