(3/3/08)
Well, my counts were pretty good today, so I guess the three units of blood helped some. Supposedly I should have felt better after the transfusion, but I didn't notice too much change. I guess my paleness went away - I also had a pretty active week, which may have had to do with the blood as well. Lessee, after spending the bulk of Monday and Tuesday getting my transfusions, I went to restorative yoga on Wed, tai chi on Wed night, had dinner with a friend after that, went climbing on Thursday night, spent the day on campus on Friday, saw "Juno" that night (great flick), had brunch on Sat, went to the Hiller Aviation Museum afterwards, went to Davis that night for dinner with a friend who was in town, and on Sun, had dim sum, went climbing and to a different yoga class (offered at the climbing gym). Whew!
Now I'm back in the hospital for a few days, getting the VAC (Vincristine/Adriamycin/Cyclophosphamide). For some reason, every time I come in as an in-patient, it takes FOREVER to get the chemo actually started. Today we got to the patient ward around 11 and they didn't start the chemo until almost 4pm. I guess they need to wait for the orders to come through and the pharmacy to mix the drugs and such. Still, it's kind of annoying that I come in here and have to sit around for hours. The nurse just hung my Adriamycin bag (around 5pm), so now I've got 48 hours to wait til I get out of here. Luckily, after five of these VAC cycles, I'll stop getting Adriamycin and this set of drugs will only take one day. The other set (IE - Ifosfamide/Etoposide) will still take 4 days, but I may move to out-patient for that one eventually. The out-patient schedule is fairly grueling, though - you basically have to come in at 7am every day for 12 hours. Still, I suspect it might be better than staying in the hospital. We'll see.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Like Blood for Chemo
No counts, no glory (2/25/08)
Well, despite having a stellar week in terms of perceived energy, my counts were too low today to go in for chemo. Actually, my red blood cells were so low that I'm anemic and am sitting in the hospital right now getting a blood transfusion. It's not as bad as it sounds - I actually feel fine, despite multiple people having told me that I look pale today. Apparently your counts don't have much to do with how you feel when you're "young" like me.
They're going to give me three units total (I'll probably have to come back tomorrow to finish up) - one unit is about the amount you give when you donate blood. Incidentally, it's also the amount they needed to give me when I had my prostate surgery, though I think that was just the plasma/platelets. The blood they're giving me has been irradiated so that the white blood cells have been killed off. Apparently this is important in case I ever need a bone marrow transplant, as you don't want to have been exposed to anyone else's white blood cells. It's a pretty unlikely scenario, but it's good that they take the precaution.
So why the super low counts? Apparently another hidden symptom of radiation is that it blasts your bone marrow, and in adults the marrow in the pelvis and the sternum produce most of your red blood cells (RBCs). So when you blast the pelvis you really reduce the ability of that bone marrow to produce RBCs. The bone marrow in our adult limbs is all fatty and doesn't really produce RBCs anymore. Supposedly this is why kids are able to take on more radiation/chemotherapy than adults - the marrow in all their extremity bones is still active and working hard, while ours is old, fat, and lazy. Of course, I don't really feel like an adult, but apparently no one told my bone marrow that.
In any case, I'm told that I'll feel really good when I get through all this blood, so I guess that's a plus. It's always a bit of a mixed blessing to have to delay a week - you want to keep the treatment going but you also want to have some more time to feel good. This time around, another positive about delaying a week is that it'll give things a little more time to heal, which will allow us to actually go back to the other set of drugs for chemo. As my doctor puts it, normally this regimen alternates sets of drugs, so you get a "left punch, right punch, left punch..." but so far we've had to do left, left, right, right, because of the radiation therapy (can't give the left set during radiation). By giving things another week, we'll hopefully be able to alternate back to the other set this time instead of giving it a third right punch. Supposedly it doesn't make too much of a difference, but I guess you want to make sure the heavy left is getting its turn. (For those of you keeping track, the aforementioned right punch is Etoposide/Ifosfamide, and the left punch is Vincristine/Adriamycin/Cyclophosphamide. It's really the Adriamycin, also called Doxorubicin, that makes it a heavy left. It's so heavy in fact that it can cause "radiation recall", in which it actually brings back some of the skin symptoms from radiation. I'm not sure how it does that, but I'm hoping I won't have to find out. Stay tuned...)
Well, despite having a stellar week in terms of perceived energy, my counts were too low today to go in for chemo. Actually, my red blood cells were so low that I'm anemic and am sitting in the hospital right now getting a blood transfusion. It's not as bad as it sounds - I actually feel fine, despite multiple people having told me that I look pale today. Apparently your counts don't have much to do with how you feel when you're "young" like me.
They're going to give me three units total (I'll probably have to come back tomorrow to finish up) - one unit is about the amount you give when you donate blood. Incidentally, it's also the amount they needed to give me when I had my prostate surgery, though I think that was just the plasma/platelets. The blood they're giving me has been irradiated so that the white blood cells have been killed off. Apparently this is important in case I ever need a bone marrow transplant, as you don't want to have been exposed to anyone else's white blood cells. It's a pretty unlikely scenario, but it's good that they take the precaution.
So why the super low counts? Apparently another hidden symptom of radiation is that it blasts your bone marrow, and in adults the marrow in the pelvis and the sternum produce most of your red blood cells (RBCs). So when you blast the pelvis you really reduce the ability of that bone marrow to produce RBCs. The bone marrow in our adult limbs is all fatty and doesn't really produce RBCs anymore. Supposedly this is why kids are able to take on more radiation/chemotherapy than adults - the marrow in all their extremity bones is still active and working hard, while ours is old, fat, and lazy. Of course, I don't really feel like an adult, but apparently no one told my bone marrow that.
In any case, I'm told that I'll feel really good when I get through all this blood, so I guess that's a plus. It's always a bit of a mixed blessing to have to delay a week - you want to keep the treatment going but you also want to have some more time to feel good. This time around, another positive about delaying a week is that it'll give things a little more time to heal, which will allow us to actually go back to the other set of drugs for chemo. As my doctor puts it, normally this regimen alternates sets of drugs, so you get a "left punch, right punch, left punch..." but so far we've had to do left, left, right, right, because of the radiation therapy (can't give the left set during radiation). By giving things another week, we'll hopefully be able to alternate back to the other set this time instead of giving it a third right punch. Supposedly it doesn't make too much of a difference, but I guess you want to make sure the heavy left is getting its turn. (For those of you keeping track, the aforementioned right punch is Etoposide/Ifosfamide, and the left punch is Vincristine/Adriamycin/Cyclophosphamide. It's really the Adriamycin, also called Doxorubicin, that makes it a heavy left. It's so heavy in fact that it can cause "radiation recall", in which it actually brings back some of the skin symptoms from radiation. I'm not sure how it does that, but I'm hoping I won't have to find out. Stay tuned...)
Friday, February 22, 2008
Don't forget to look UP
(2/22/08)
Well I'm finally starting to feel a bit more normal these days. The itchy burns went through a period of gross oozing pus-iness, but now they seem to have dried out and are healing quite nicely. BMs are still a little painful, but I'm already doing everything the docs (and other folks) have recommended, so I think I'll just have to wait for things to heal up (it's getting better, anyhow). Round 5 is coming up next week...
Energy Levels
One of the things they tell you to expect is a lot of fatigue from the chemo. Lately I've been thinking that my energy with normal activities seems to be pretty good (walking around, driving, eating, doing stuff on the computer), but of course then I realized that most of those normal activities involve just sitting around. I guess maybe there's something to be said for achieving normality when sitting around itself is a bit of a feat because of bottom soreness. For most of last week I was trying to either sit on really cushy things (my mom bought me this Christmas tree pillow a while ago that I sometimes carry around with me) or lie down in a reclined position on my side. Luckily, that seems to be less and less of a problem every day. I can even sit on hard chairs now with no problem (wee! it's so exciting, I know).
In any case, beyond those normal activities, I've really noticed the limits of my energy when I try and exercise. I went "hiking" with my sister two weekends ago (right after my last round), and I started to get winded after a very short incline. We were walking on a trail that was mostly downhill, and then there was a little 2-minute stretch of uphill and all of a sudden my heart was pounding and I was breathing heavily like I had just sprinted 100 meters or something. I felt kind of lame, but once we got to the bottom I made Julia go back and get the car to pick me up.
Supposedly this is not abnormal, though. A couple months ago, I met a guy who had just finished the same chemo regimen as me, and he said he basically wasn't able to do any kind of cardio exercise like running or biking because his heart would start pounding like crazy.
I guess the nice thing about my normal hobby exercises is their scalability. Tai Chi is something you can do at varying levels, no matter what your energy happens to be. Climbing is a bit less scalable, but I've found i can do a little bit and just rest a lot in between climbs. It's kind of frustrating, though, since I want to be able to do a lot more but my body is not letting me. Even Tai Chi can be tiring. I'm hoping I can build back up some amount of strength and endurance. I went climbing yesterday and was able to do quite a bit more than last week. I guess it's a combined effect of all this crap (read: poisonous chemo drugs) taking its toll on me, as well as the simple fact that I haven't really been exercising for the past few months. The latter would probably knock anyone down a few notches in performance, eh?
Looking up
Well, so the other day in a stint of "I feel good"-ness, I decided to drive up to SF to see a friend who had the day off from residency. It of course turned out to be a rainy day after a stint of really nice days, but that didn't bother me too much. I picked her up and we decided to go to the MOMA to check out the latest exhibits. We were originally going to grab lunch, but it was a bit late by the time I got up there, so we decided to just go over to the MOMA and get something quick nearby.
It was just before 3pm and we pulled up to some parking meters right across the street from the MOMA. The spaces were mostly empty but there was at least one other car there. The meters said they were active from 9am-3pm - "Ha! What luck! Free parking!" we said. Somewhere deep in the back of my mind, though, I knew it was too good to be true. We went to get some sandwiches, and when we came out, sure enough, there was my car disappearing around the corner on the back of a tow-truck. Urghh. So we rushed over to where we had parked, thinking, "Okay, what did we miss?". Looking up, we saw the signs that said in fact this was a tow-away zone AFTER 3pm. How nice of the parking meter to let us know. Apparently the readout on the meter does flash "see tow-away restrictions", but only after 3pm. Since we got there a little before 3pm, the meter just said, "expired". I could just hear the its haughty little voice going, "Well, technically there were no tow-away restrictions when you got here, ha ha ha..." I called the number on the sign and got a voice recording telling me where my car had been towed and how to get it back. Luckily, the tow yard was only a few blocks away, and so we trudged over there in the sprinkling rain.
It turns out they actually make it relatively quick and easy for you to get your car back. Make no mistake, that place is a money-making machine (there were probably a good 50-60 cars in the yard), but it's nice that they at least make it easy for you to get gouged. You basically walk into the place, take a number, and wait for them to call you up. There weren't too many people there when we got there (maybe 6-7), so we got called right away. The woman asked for my driver's license and $238.75 (Ack! And that's not including the $60 parking ticket), I gave her my credit card, and we were on our way. I took the receipt to the guy outside and they brought the car around within a few minutes. Then we drove off to Japantown, where the parking was a bit safer, and hung out there for a couple hours.
I guess it's hard to get upset about things like this in light of everything else going on. We didn't get to see the MOMA, but we had a nice walk in the city and eventually ended up in a cute tea shop in Japantown. It was a new experience anyway, albeit an expensive one. I suppose the moral of the story is, when parking in SF, and in life in general, don't forget to look UP...
Well I'm finally starting to feel a bit more normal these days. The itchy burns went through a period of gross oozing pus-iness, but now they seem to have dried out and are healing quite nicely. BMs are still a little painful, but I'm already doing everything the docs (and other folks) have recommended, so I think I'll just have to wait for things to heal up (it's getting better, anyhow). Round 5 is coming up next week...
Energy Levels
One of the things they tell you to expect is a lot of fatigue from the chemo. Lately I've been thinking that my energy with normal activities seems to be pretty good (walking around, driving, eating, doing stuff on the computer), but of course then I realized that most of those normal activities involve just sitting around. I guess maybe there's something to be said for achieving normality when sitting around itself is a bit of a feat because of bottom soreness. For most of last week I was trying to either sit on really cushy things (my mom bought me this Christmas tree pillow a while ago that I sometimes carry around with me) or lie down in a reclined position on my side. Luckily, that seems to be less and less of a problem every day. I can even sit on hard chairs now with no problem (wee! it's so exciting, I know).
In any case, beyond those normal activities, I've really noticed the limits of my energy when I try and exercise. I went "hiking" with my sister two weekends ago (right after my last round), and I started to get winded after a very short incline. We were walking on a trail that was mostly downhill, and then there was a little 2-minute stretch of uphill and all of a sudden my heart was pounding and I was breathing heavily like I had just sprinted 100 meters or something. I felt kind of lame, but once we got to the bottom I made Julia go back and get the car to pick me up.
Supposedly this is not abnormal, though. A couple months ago, I met a guy who had just finished the same chemo regimen as me, and he said he basically wasn't able to do any kind of cardio exercise like running or biking because his heart would start pounding like crazy.
I guess the nice thing about my normal hobby exercises is their scalability. Tai Chi is something you can do at varying levels, no matter what your energy happens to be. Climbing is a bit less scalable, but I've found i can do a little bit and just rest a lot in between climbs. It's kind of frustrating, though, since I want to be able to do a lot more but my body is not letting me. Even Tai Chi can be tiring. I'm hoping I can build back up some amount of strength and endurance. I went climbing yesterday and was able to do quite a bit more than last week. I guess it's a combined effect of all this crap (read: poisonous chemo drugs) taking its toll on me, as well as the simple fact that I haven't really been exercising for the past few months. The latter would probably knock anyone down a few notches in performance, eh?
Looking up
Well, so the other day in a stint of "I feel good"-ness, I decided to drive up to SF to see a friend who had the day off from residency. It of course turned out to be a rainy day after a stint of really nice days, but that didn't bother me too much. I picked her up and we decided to go to the MOMA to check out the latest exhibits. We were originally going to grab lunch, but it was a bit late by the time I got up there, so we decided to just go over to the MOMA and get something quick nearby.
It was just before 3pm and we pulled up to some parking meters right across the street from the MOMA. The spaces were mostly empty but there was at least one other car there. The meters said they were active from 9am-3pm - "Ha! What luck! Free parking!" we said. Somewhere deep in the back of my mind, though, I knew it was too good to be true. We went to get some sandwiches, and when we came out, sure enough, there was my car disappearing around the corner on the back of a tow-truck. Urghh. So we rushed over to where we had parked, thinking, "Okay, what did we miss?". Looking up, we saw the signs that said in fact this was a tow-away zone AFTER 3pm. How nice of the parking meter to let us know. Apparently the readout on the meter does flash "see tow-away restrictions", but only after 3pm. Since we got there a little before 3pm, the meter just said, "expired". I could just hear the its haughty little voice going, "Well, technically there were no tow-away restrictions when you got here, ha ha ha..." I called the number on the sign and got a voice recording telling me where my car had been towed and how to get it back. Luckily, the tow yard was only a few blocks away, and so we trudged over there in the sprinkling rain.
It turns out they actually make it relatively quick and easy for you to get your car back. Make no mistake, that place is a money-making machine (there were probably a good 50-60 cars in the yard), but it's nice that they at least make it easy for you to get gouged. You basically walk into the place, take a number, and wait for them to call you up. There weren't too many people there when we got there (maybe 6-7), so we got called right away. The woman asked for my driver's license and $238.75 (Ack! And that's not including the $60 parking ticket), I gave her my credit card, and we were on our way. I took the receipt to the guy outside and they brought the car around within a few minutes. Then we drove off to Japantown, where the parking was a bit safer, and hung out there for a couple hours.
I guess it's hard to get upset about things like this in light of everything else going on. We didn't get to see the MOMA, but we had a nice walk in the city and eventually ended up in a cute tea shop in Japantown. It was a new experience anyway, albeit an expensive one. I suppose the moral of the story is, when parking in SF, and in life in general, don't forget to look UP...
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Graduation from Radiation
(or "How I got sunburns on my butt") 
2/13/08
Well, folks, 28 days came and went, much more quickly than I thought it would, thankfully. (Random aside: I wonder now where they came up with 28 days - I'm sure it's just a total calculated dose divided by the individual dose or something like that - but what about the obvious connection to the zombie movie 28 Days Later, its less-good successor, 28 Weeks Later, and the less well known and completely un-zombified Sandra Bullock movie, 28 Days?... )
Anyhoo, I finished chemo cycle #4 last week and capped it off on Friday with my last radiation session (woohoo!!!). There wasn't too much ceremony surrounding the moment, but they did give me a spiffy certificate (as you can see in the picture). The rat is there to signify Chinese New Year (a gift from mom - can you tell which rat it is?) and how awesome this year will be compared to last :P. Apparently some people get dressed up in cap and gown on their last day, but I guess it didn't feel like that big a deal to me (plus I'd been in the hospital all week for cycle 4 of chemo anyhow - didn't have a whole lot of energy to put into it). It certainly feels like more of a big deal now that I don't have to go into the hospital every day and lie on a table for 15 minutes. Plus, I'm psyched to have these radiation burns on my bottom heal up (everyone get your inner chant on, "Heal! Heal! Heal!"), cuz they're painful and itchy and keep me up at night. I guess it's kinda like someone took a big magnifying glass while you were lying on your stomach at the nude beach and he/she aimed it in a nice concentrated 3x4 inch oval right on the midline. Then you get up two days later and it's all burned and raw and only in that spot and you say, "but I was only out there for 15 minutes!". And the evil maniacal laughter of the magnifying glass wielder echoes in the distance...
Actually, the magnifying glass looks a lot more like what's in the pictures below. About a week before I finished, I asked Lisa, one of the radiation techs whom I saw almost every day of those 28 days, to take a few pics for me:
They can monitor me from outside the room I'm in - gotta keep the radiation dose down for the techs!
A feet's eye view of me on the table - they have a mold to put the bottom parts of your legs into, so they can position you in the same spot every time. Also, there are lasers demarking a cross pattern onto the table, so they can use that, too. I also have little tattoos on my body for alignment...
I've been feeling pretty good after this last cycle, despite the burned bum and such - even managed to make it to campus twice this week and did a little bit of climbing yesterday. I've also been going to a "restorative yoga" class every once in a while (went on Monday). It's sponsored by the Stanford Cancer Center but is held at the Avalon Yoga Center in Palo Alto. It's more focused on relaxation and stretching, which is nice. Still having some painful BMs and other not-so-fun issues, but all and all, things are okay. It just gets a little boring on those days when I really don't feel so good and have to lie around the house all day.
K, til next post!
2/13/08Well, folks, 28 days came and went, much more quickly than I thought it would, thankfully. (Random aside: I wonder now where they came up with 28 days - I'm sure it's just a total calculated dose divided by the individual dose or something like that - but what about the obvious connection to the zombie movie 28 Days Later, its less-good successor, 28 Weeks Later, and the less well known and completely un-zombified Sandra Bullock movie, 28 Days?
Anyhoo, I finished chemo cycle #4 last week and capped it off on Friday with my last radiation session (woohoo!!!). There wasn't too much ceremony surrounding the moment, but they did give me a spiffy certificate (as you can see in the picture). The rat is there to signify Chinese New Year (a gift from mom - can you tell which rat it is?) and how awesome this year will be compared to last :P. Apparently some people get dressed up in cap and gown on their last day, but I guess it didn't feel like that big a deal to me (plus I'd been in the hospital all week for cycle 4 of chemo anyhow - didn't have a whole lot of energy to put into it). It certainly feels like more of a big deal now that I don't have to go into the hospital every day and lie on a table for 15 minutes. Plus, I'm psyched to have these radiation burns on my bottom heal up (everyone get your inner chant on, "Heal! Heal! Heal!"), cuz they're painful and itchy and keep me up at night. I guess it's kinda like someone took a big magnifying glass while you were lying on your stomach at the nude beach and he/she aimed it in a nice concentrated 3x4 inch oval right on the midline. Then you get up two days later and it's all burned and raw and only in that spot and you say, "but I was only out there for 15 minutes!". And the evil maniacal laughter of the magnifying glass wielder echoes in the distance...
Actually, the magnifying glass looks a lot more like what's in the pictures below. About a week before I finished, I asked Lisa, one of the radiation techs whom I saw almost every day of those 28 days, to take a few pics for me:
Side view of me on the radiation table. As long as I wore loose-fitting pants with no metal, I didn't have to change into a gown every time, which was nice. The round thing above my pelvis is the gray cheese wheel I referred to in another post. The rectangular panel hovering below me is actually only there because they were taking some X-rays before starting the radiation. Usually that piece is retracted as the whole cheese wheel armature rotates around my body.
Onne, one of the other radiation techs, does something with fancy equipment. I never really saw this part, so I don't know what they would do out there. My impression is that everything is pretty automated, though.
Onne, one of the other radiation techs, does something with fancy equipment. I never really saw this part, so I don't know what they would do out there. My impression is that everything is pretty automated, though.
They can monitor me from outside the room I'm in - gotta keep the radiation dose down for the techs!
A feet's eye view of me on the table - they have a mold to put the bottom parts of your legs into, so they can position you in the same spot every time. Also, there are lasers demarking a cross pattern onto the table, so they can use that, too. I also have little tattoos on my body for alignment...
K, til next post!
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Pain in the Butt
(1/30/08)
Unbelievably, it's already 2008, and almost February for that matter. How time flies when you're having fun/getting radiation therapy every day. . . Okay, you'll have to excuse any cheeky humor that finds its way into this post. I've been reading David Sedaris' Naked, which is pretty much hilarious. He writes about his life in terms of these little vignettes - stories about hitchhiking across the country, going to summer camp, picking apples in Oregon - but he does it in such a way that makes everything just believable enough to buy into it, but just unbelievable enough to be in shock and awe at the situations he describes. Yes, I am coveting his writing talent.
Anyhow, here's the quick update: Today was day 21 of 28 days of radiation - just 7 more days to go!! So far so good - my neupogen shots have been keeping the WBCs (White Blood Cells) nice and happy, so we've been able to plow along with the radiation treatments. It's a bit of a pain to drive into campus every day, but I guess that's what I'd be doing anyway. The real pain in the butt is, well, this pain in the butt I've been having. I'll spare the gory details, but let's just say I have some sort of tear or cut or something that makes every BM (Bowel Movement) very painful. I've tried sitz baths, suppositories (reminds me of middle school, when we used to make off-color jokes about how Lee Harvey Oswald took a shot at JFK from the Texas School Book Suppository - not sure the joke really went much farther than that, because I'm not sure any of us really knew what a suppository was - except that it was supposed to be funny), lidocaine (numbing gel), lotions, but nothing seems to be making things heal up. Apparently this is just one of those things you have to wait out. Who knew simple bodily functions like pooing and peeing (see previous posts on Foley catheters and painful urination) could cause such trauma in one's life? Let that be a lesson to all you people out there, taking your pee and poo for granted. You'd better start appreciating the smooth workings of your respective urinary and gastrointestinal tracts, 'fore I come ov'r thar and whoop you with mah crotchety old man's cane. Jus' let me git outta this rockin' chair, first... (much exaggerated fist shaking ensues).
Unbelievably, it's already 2008, and almost February for that matter. How time flies when you're having fun/getting radiation therapy every day. . . Okay, you'll have to excuse any cheeky humor that finds its way into this post. I've been reading David Sedaris' Naked, which is pretty much hilarious. He writes about his life in terms of these little vignettes - stories about hitchhiking across the country, going to summer camp, picking apples in Oregon - but he does it in such a way that makes everything just believable enough to buy into it, but just unbelievable enough to be in shock and awe at the situations he describes. Yes, I am coveting his writing talent.
Anyhow, here's the quick update: Today was day 21 of 28 days of radiation - just 7 more days to go!! So far so good - my neupogen shots have been keeping the WBCs (White Blood Cells) nice and happy, so we've been able to plow along with the radiation treatments. It's a bit of a pain to drive into campus every day, but I guess that's what I'd be doing anyway. The real pain in the butt is, well, this pain in the butt I've been having. I'll spare the gory details, but let's just say I have some sort of tear or cut or something that makes every BM (Bowel Movement) very painful. I've tried sitz baths, suppositories (reminds me of middle school, when we used to make off-color jokes about how Lee Harvey Oswald took a shot at JFK from the Texas School Book Suppository - not sure the joke really went much farther than that, because I'm not sure any of us really knew what a suppository was - except that it was supposed to be funny), lidocaine (numbing gel), lotions, but nothing seems to be making things heal up. Apparently this is just one of those things you have to wait out. Who knew simple bodily functions like pooing and peeing (see previous posts on Foley catheters and painful urination) could cause such trauma in one's life? Let that be a lesson to all you people out there, taking your pee and poo for granted. You'd better start appreciating the smooth workings of your respective urinary and gastrointestinal tracts, 'fore I come ov'r thar and whoop you with mah crotchety old man's cane. Jus' let me git outta this rockin' chair, first... (much exaggerated fist shaking ensues).
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Round 3 for real
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...)
(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...)
Monday, January 07, 2008
Count for the Down
(1/07/08) 5:46 pm
Well, after all my midnight rantings and loading of Family Guy DVDs into my backpack, it turns out my counts were too low to start round 3 of chemo today. It's a normal thing, to have the counts go low, so the docs said there's nothing to worry about. On the plus side, they also mentioned that the butt bump has shrunk (on CT scan) to a measly 8 mm by 3 mm. They weren't even able to see the lung nodules, but this was also a low-resolution CT, so we'll have to wait for a better scan in the future to be sure about those. My white blood cell count was the culprit this time around - platelets and red blood cells are good. Probably this will mean more shots of neupogen after the next round (that's the injection I have to take every night after a cycle to get my counts up). The other plus is I get another week of semi-normal life before starting again (yay!).
I've had a request for links to Cosmos Education and other interests o' mine, so I'm going to start a links column on the right (thanks Jeff, for the idea) - feel free to pass these along if you find 'em interesting. Other random good news - we just got a big donation to Cosmos to continue our work in Kenya and Zambia (woohoo!). K, that's it for now...
Well, after all my midnight rantings and loading of Family Guy DVDs into my backpack, it turns out my counts were too low to start round 3 of chemo today. It's a normal thing, to have the counts go low, so the docs said there's nothing to worry about. On the plus side, they also mentioned that the butt bump has shrunk (on CT scan) to a measly 8 mm by 3 mm. They weren't even able to see the lung nodules, but this was also a low-resolution CT, so we'll have to wait for a better scan in the future to be sure about those. My white blood cell count was the culprit this time around - platelets and red blood cells are good. Probably this will mean more shots of neupogen after the next round (that's the injection I have to take every night after a cycle to get my counts up). The other plus is I get another week of semi-normal life before starting again (yay!).
I've had a request for links to Cosmos Education and other interests o' mine, so I'm going to start a links column on the right (thanks Jeff, for the idea) - feel free to pass these along if you find 'em interesting. Other random good news - we just got a big donation to Cosmos to continue our work in Kenya and Zambia (woohoo!). K, that's it for now...
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