Hmmm... I wrote this post while in the hospital last week, but never actually posted it. I think to save on the time-lag confusion, both in writing and in reading, I'll just post as is and add on separately. Enjoy the time-travel experience!
(1/16/08)
Well the blood counts managed to improve over the past week, so I'm in the hospital now getting chemo round 3. Because I'm getting radiation therapy at the same time, I'm on a slightly different set of drugs this round (normally I would be alternating sets of drugs anyway). Supposedly this is the easier set to tolerate, but because of the way it can affect the kidneys, they need to have me on mega doses of saline solution to keep me hydrated. It's not too bad, except that I end up having to pee all the time.
For those of you following at home, this round is ye olde etoposide and ifosfamide, which cause the usual nausea, low blood counts, fatigue, etc. Since my counts were low last week, they're only giving me 80% of the normal dose for this drug, which means ostensibly only 4 days instead of 5 in the hospital. Unfortunately, we got started late on Monday around 5pm, so I'll end up being here til Fri morning anyhow. Not a huge deal, since I have to be here for radiation at noon anyway, but it would have been nice to have a little less time in F-ground.
On the plus side, my roommate of the past couple of days apparently bugged the IT people here enough to get access to the wireless network, and he was generous enough to share the password (along with some oatmeal cookies his friend baked for him) with me. It was pretty refreshing to share a room with someone who was actually a little closer to my age and able to walk around and chat and hang out. Mostly my roommates have been older folks who are pretty much confined to their beds and/or don't speak English.
(Note from the present time: my roommate of the next couple days was indeed an older gentleman who didn't speak much English and did a lot of whimpering. Very, very kind man - he would always wish me well when I saw him, but let's just say it made for difficult sleeping. Luckily, one of my nurses finally gave me earplugs the last day or two...)
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Alex,
I'm glad I found you on facebook. I happened to decide to click on the blog link to see what you're up to these days, and this certainly wasn't what I expected.
I just finished reading through your posts. I laughed and I cried, but most of all, I'm amazed at how you're handling all this. Its truly inspirational. I'll definitely be thinking of you and wishing you the best.
And seeing old pictures from Stoga, even from the class ahead of me certainly brought back good memories!
Every good thing,
Scott
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