Chemo week 3

This week has been great. I have lot of energy. My stomach is not upset. I've been eating like a pig! I might even break into the 140 pounds club. So if this is the pattern of one bad week after chemo and then two good weeks I can deal with it.

On the downside there was lots of hair on my pillow this morning. The doctor told me I would lose my hair. But the infusion nurse said I may not. I was resigned to the fact I was going to lose my hair until the nurse gave me hope. I was hoping I would dodge this bullet, but I guess you can't be a "real" chemo patient if you don't lose your hair. I'm going to take a preemptive strike tonight and get my hair buzzed. But after all my hair falls out I have some choices. Please take the survey above to help me choose my new look.

I could go with the natural Kojak look:


The Hulk Hogan doo rag look:


Or the Bret Michaels doo rag plus cowboy hat look:

Chemo week 2

I sure some of you were worried I may have kill myself after the last post. Nope still here ;-) Week 2 has been better, not good, but better. I stopped taking the nausea medicine on Sat. because it wasn't working. By Monday my stomach started feeling better, I don't know if the effect of chemo wore off or the medicine was making me feel bad. The doctor basically told me if I was vomiting then my nausea wasn't that bad!

The fog in my head has also lifted mostly. They told me about "Chemo Brain" which they said I would be forgetful. But I wasn't really forgetful it was just hard to concentrate on anything. I've worked full days starting on Friday. I'm not 100% but I'm getting work accomplished. Trust me when you are programming you need to concentrate. I inserted an example below for those of you who have never seen code.

So I'm hopeful that maybe I'll only have 1 bad week out of every 3. My white blood cells will crash from days 10 to 14 and I'm supposed to be more tired. That hasn't happened yet.

Code to compare 2 files: (This is the simple stuff)

public static void compareFiles(String imdataDir, String imbdatDir) {

BufferedReader brImdata = null;
BufferedReader brImbdata = null;
int fileCnt = 0;

esrExtentions.add(".esr");

try {
File[] fileNames = filesToProcess(imdataDir, esrExtentions);

for (int x = 0; x < fileNames.length; x++) {
File fileImdata = fileNames[x];

fileCnt++;
if (fileCnt % 100 == 0 ) {
System.out.println("Files Processed " + fileCnt);
}

File fileImbdata = getBdataFile(imbdatDir + "\\" + fileImdata.getName());

if (fileImbdata.isFile()) {

boolean isFileDif = false;
int lineCnt = 0;

brImdata = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(fileImdata));
brImbdata = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(fileImbdata));
String lineImdata = null;
String lineImbdata = null;

while ((lineImdata = brImdata.readLine()) != null) {
lineCnt++;
lineImbdata = brImbdata.readLine();
if (lineCnt > 1) {
if (lineImbdata != null) {
if (!lineImdata.equals(lineImbdata)) {
System.out.println("line # " + lineCnt + " " + lineImdata);
System.out.println("line #B " + lineCnt + " " + lineImbdata);
isFileDif = true;
}

} else {
isFileDif = true;
}
}
}
if (brImbdata.readLine() != null) {
isFileDif = true;
}
if (isFileDif) {
System.err.println(" File is different " + fileImdata.getName());
}

brImdata.close();
brImbdata.close();
}

}

} catch (IOException ioe) {
ioe.printStackTrace();
}

}

This is not going to be easy

After the first couple of days of chemo I thought I was going to skate through this without it being too bad. Well I was wrong. My stomach is still very upset. Nothing seems to help it. The doctor changed my medicine but it didn't work. I have an appointment with him on Monday so maybe some other medicine will work. The only thing that seems to help is lying down.

The worst thing about this is my head is in a fog. I can't concentrate to read or even watch TV. So I feel like I wandering around doing nothing all day, just waiting until it is time to sleep.

Sorry for the downer of a post, but I said I wasn't going to sugar coat it. Hopefully the next two weeks will be better.

Chemo Day 2

Well I made it to work today, but only for half a day. I was very tired and came home and took a nap after lunch. My stomach is very upset. I'm going to try to get a different nausea medicine for tomorrow.

On to tomorrow.

Chemo Day 1

Warning if you don't really want to know how chemo effects you stop reading now.

I'm not going to sugar coat it, but today was good.

I arrived at the infusion center at 8:00 AM. They gave me a little tour of the place. Where the food and drinks was stored (because I trying not to eat any sugar I can't eat 90% of it). The bathroom, the nurses station, etc. They then sat Bridget and I down and gave us a bunch of material to read over about chemo and explained the procedure.

Then we started. My chemo is called R-CHOP. First they administered Rituximab.

Rituximab (Mabthera®) belongs to a group of drugs known as monoclonal antibodies. It is used to treat several different types of B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Monoclonal antibodies are used to try to destroy some types of cancer cells, while causing little harm to normal cells. They are designed to recognise certain proteins that are found on the surface of some cancer cells. The monoclonal antibody recognises the protein and locks onto it (like a key in a lock). This may then trigger the body’s immune system to attack the cancer cells and can sometimes make the cells destroy themselves

They start with a low dosage of the drug at first and then slowly increase the amount every 30 minutes. After the 3rd round my throat started feeling very sore and my nose started running. They stopped the treatment and gave me some hydrocortisone which lessened the soreness in my throat. Then the treatment was started again. It lasted until 2:00 PM.

Next I was given a anti-nausea medicine through the IV, sorry don't remember the name. It took about 30 minutes.

Next I was give Doxorubicin which is a chemo drug that is a red fluid injected in a big syringe. I had to suck on ice chips to constrict the blood vessels in my mouth to reduce the chance of mouth sores. This only took about 5 minutes.

Finally I was given Cyclophosphamide through the IV. This took about 30 minutes and I was all finished.

I have to take prednisolone, which is a steroid in pill form over the next 5 days. This revs up your immune system (the nurses words) and told me I would be very tired after I stoppled taking it.

OK, but how do you feel. Well the whole thing was pretty anticlimactic. I'm tired and my port site hurts and I have a headache, but not too bad. I had a lot of anxiety about what to expect which made it worse. As the drugs were going into me I kept waiting to feel bad. We will see what tomorrow brings and I will let you know about it.

My chair:


My view and TV:

Port

I had the port put in this morning. The surgery was a little more involved than I anticipated. It took about 45 minutes. It is now 3 hours after the surgery and I'm in a little pain but nothing too bad.

Wikipedia defines a port this way:
In medicine, a port (or portacath) is a small medical appliance that is installed beneath the skin.. A catheter connects the port to a vein. Under the skin, the port has a septum through which drugs can be injected and blood samples can be drawn many times, usually with less discomfort for the patient than a more typical "needle stick".
Ports are used mostly to treat hematology and oncology patients, but recently ports have been adapted also for hemodialysis patients.
The port is usually inserted in the upper chest, just below the clavicle or collar bone, leaving the patient's hands free.


This is what they put in me.




It was inserted in the upper right part of my chest.



Update:

I woke up this morning and the site where the port was put in is very stiff. It hurts to raise my arm over my shoulder. I will have to ask the doctor why she put the port in the right side since I'm right handed.

Mulch Party

Bridget and I debated how to get the mulch spread this year, since I couldn't help. I was going to hire somebody to do it, but Bridget didn't want to hire somebody who would do it quickly and bury her flowers. So many people have offered to help us in any way possible. Bridget sent out an email to ask for help with the mulch and the response overwhelmed us. We got 6 yards of mulch spread in an hour. Jim and Maria who couldn't be here stopped by yesterday and dropped off refreshments. Thanks to everybody who helped!


The Crew

How did I get here?

On February 22, 2007, my birthday, I was sitting down to watch TV. I had just been to the gym where I ran and lifted weights. The weekend before I was snow boarding with the family. I started feeling a tingling in my feet. Like they were asleep but it was different because it felt like nails were being driven into my toes. I didn't think much of it and went to bed. The next morning I woke up and the pain was still there. I went to work and now the tingling and pain started in my hands. I saw my doctor the next day. They did standard blood work and saw that my thyroid was under active (hypothyroidism is the fancy medical term). They put me on medicine and told me the symptoms should go away in about 6 weeks. Well it didn't. Over the next year and a half I saw too many doctors who could only confirm that I had a severe, length dependent, small fiber sensory neuropathy. But they couldn't find a cause. I gave up at that point.

Now my stomach had been giving me so much trouble that I went to see a GI doctor. He performed an Upper GI Endoscopy (camera down your throat) and said everything looked fine. But it wasn't fine. I had no appetite and eating became utilitarian. He gave me a bunch of medicines, but nothing helped. I gave up again.

Fast forward to November of 2008. In addition to the neuropathy and stomach pains my lower back hurt so much it was waking me up at night. My wife suggested I see an Osteopathic doctor to manipulate my back. He cracked and popped my back and said I should be feeling better now. Of course I wasn't. He told me the pain must be internal. He asked who was my primary care doctor. I told him and he said that they were roommates in college. He told me he was going to call him that night and tell him to do a CAT scan on me. Well he actually called him!

My primary care doctor ordered a CAT scan that showed I had a blockage in my left ureter.





Off to the the urologist. The urologist put a scope up my manhood (sorry for that image guys) and cleared the blockage and put in a stent (a long and I mean long 18 inch tube). That was the most painful week of my life until I made him take the stent out. The urologist ordered another more detailed CAT (why didn't they do a detailed one in the first place?). This time the CAT showed the dreaded mass around my ureter. So that scope up my manhood was all for nothing! Off to surgery with me.

The surgeon did a exploratory laporoscopy of my abdomen. Basically put 6 small holes in me and blew my abdomen up with gas. I joked with the kids that they had to tie me down or I would have floated to the ceiling like a balloon. She did a biopsy of the mass which was of course cancer if you haven't been paying attention. Off to the oncologist.


My oncologist, who looks so young I wouldn't serve him a drink, ordered yet another CAT scan, a PET scan (fancy cancer scan) and a bone biopsy. Now I'm waiting to have a port put in my chest (June 5) to administer the chemo(June 8).

Well you are all caught up now. Sorry for the long post. More posts of future procedures, hopefully with pictures!

You have cancer

Not the words anybody wants to hear. You really don't want to be told those words by a surgeon who can't give you any information, because it is not her speciality. Then have to wait 2 weeks to see the oncoligist.

OK why would a guy who can't spell kat and who was once told by a college English professor, after reviewing a paper, that "Maybe college isn't for you" write a blog? Well I'm writing it for me. After going to many doctors and answering the same questions over and over I decided to write up a medical history of dates, doctors, symptoms, etc. I found that process therapeutic. Once it was written down I could focus on other things. Hopefully this blog will have the same effect on me as I battle cancer. Also I have received so much support from my family and friends and from people who I didn't think really liked me, that I feel I owe you a window into my progress.