Friday, January 25, 2008

The 4th Treatment

I had my 4th treatment last Friday.

I was scheduled for bloodwork at 9:30, two doctor's appointments at 10:30 and 11:00 and then the infusion at 1:00.

My absolute neuts dropped again. Now I'm down to .32. The doctor said that it would be OK for me to proceed with my infusion. When I got to the infusion room, they said that the orders said that I was not to get the insusion unless the levels were above .50. Therefore, they refused to fill the order. It took an hour to straigten out the mess. In the meantime, I convinced them to get me started with an IV and fluids so we moved along once the orders were corrected.



Once we got going, the schedule was as follows:

Adriamycin - 3:10-3:15

Vinblastine - 3:16-3:20

Bleomycin - 3:20 - 3:30

Dacarbazine - 3:35-4:35

After the infusion, I felt great for the rest of the day and good the next day. As usual the next day I was tired and spent a lot of the day resting in bed. I've felt some aches and pains (especially in my arms) but nothing too bad. I've been trying to avoid crowds and sick people but everyone seems to be sick right now.

My mood is a 9 out of 10.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

The Night before the 4th Treatment

Last weekend most of my side effects went away and I've felt great since then. I suspect tomorrow will be a long day since I have to wait 90 minutes between my doctor's appointment and my infusion. Oh well, it's best to expect it to be a long day and just relax through it.

I bought a book by Bernie Siegel called How to Live betwen Office Visits. He writes about cancer patients who give themselves permission to start living the life they want to live after they get diagnosed. As he asks, why do you have to get cancer to live the life you want to live?

By tomorrow night, I hope to be 1/3 of the way through my treatments. I know complications can interfere with the schedule and get treatments postponed but I would really like to be done by the middle of May. Of course this supposes a successful outcome to the treatments - and that's what I choose to do.

I'm going to rate my mood a 10 out of 10.

Monday, January 7, 2008

After the 3rd Treatment

I had my 3rd treatment on Friday. It turned out my concern about my FEV1 was unfounded. It turns out the DLCO [Hb] number is more important and it was fine. I guess this proves it doesn't make sense to worry about test results when you aren't qualified to evaluate them anyway.

I had an 8:00 appointment to get my blood drawn. I met with the doctor at 9:00 and then I was scheduled for my infusion at 10:00. Somehow things were slow to get started and I got my IV set up and fluids started near 11:00. Then the schedule went as follows:

Adriamycin - 11:05 - 11:15
Vinblastine - 11:15 - 11:20
Bleomycin - 11:20 - 11:25
Dacarbazine - 11:30 - ~12:40

I needed to slow down the Dacarbazine because I could feel it being pumped into me and it's not a comfortable feeling. A heat pack helped. I then got about an hour's worth of more fluids to reduce the chances of my getting constipated.

I got home by 3:00.

That night and the next day I felt great. I went to the gym for a 3 mile walk, I did some shopping and I went to a dinner party until almost midnight.

I went to bed at 2:00 AM on Sunday and slept until 9:00 Monday morning. Yes, you read that right. I slept 30 of 31 hours with only a 1 hour break to eat dinner on Sunday afternoon. At first, bed just seemed like a really comfortable place to be. Over time, I started feeling exhausted and couldn't get out of bed. This morning (Monday) I went to another doctor appointment, came home and, you guessed it, went to bed for another couple of hours until I had to go to yet another doctor appointment in the late afternoon. My doctors think I may have overdone it on Saturday and things caught up with me. My ENT said that I am showing signs of having a cold as well. The good news is that the remaining tissue in my adenoids continues to get smaller.





The last day kind of threw me for a loop. I think when things are going very well it's easy to get discouraged when you have a bad day. Some days will be good, some not so good. Even though I feel pretty good right now (just a little tired), I'm still going to rate my mood over the last 24 hours as a 6 out of 10.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

The Night before the 3rd Treatment

For scheduling purposes, it was decided to move my appointments to Fridays instead of Thursdays. I'm fine with that because it will make it easier to work but I will miss the nurses I've been treated by so far.

I had a pulmonary function test on Wednesday. When compared to the test I had before starting chemotherapy, it showed a reduction in my FEV1 that put it out of the normal range. The FEV1 is the amount of air you can blow out of your lungs in 1 second. I hope it doesn't interfere with my treatment schedule.

I spoke to my dentist today although I know I can't have any dentistry done (including teeth cleaning) until I'm done being treated. He too is being treated for Hodgkin's. He was diagnosed with stage 3 Hodgkin's and now appears to be cancer free after 8 treatments. He has 4 more treatments to go to finish the regimen. His first treatment was difficult and he ended up in the hospital for a day and a half. He also needed to give himself injections because some of his blood counts were low. After the first treatment, things got better for him and now his experience sounds like it is similar to what I have experienced. It is very hopeful to hear that somebody who was diagnosed with stage 3 Hodgkin's is getting clean PET scans already.

I've started thinking more and more about my business. I would like to spend more time on sales but it is hard to focus while health issues have your attention.

I'm scheduled to have my blood drawn in 7 and a half hours so I should probably head to bed.

My mood is another 10 out of 10 tonight. Cross your fingeers that it stays that way after tomorrow!