Summertime Setback

 

 

Summertime is here and my little friends in my gut are still hanging out, causing a ruckus on occasion. Latest and greatest feature of my journey is my lack of facial hair. It started falling out about a month ago, at first didn't think much of it. within a week the stache looked like this and the beard was pretty much non-existent.  I've had a mustache since high school and a beard most of my adult life(no more). Apparently after over 18 months of chemotherapy my body decided say "No Soup For You!!!" to facial hair. Getting used to it just like the hair on top, but it's a bit shocking every morning looking in the mirror. 

 

 

 

Oh Well, the fight goes on. Not going to give up ever.

 

FThisC

Christmas 2015

Beautiful ride up to parents house for Christmas.

Trip was wonderful, loved spending time with my family, especially since the loss of my brother's father in law Don.

Don was a wonderful man and finally lost his 2 year battle with Pancreatic cancer on December 21st. He was diagnosed 9 months before me. I learned a lot from his courage and love of life, 

Christmas Day was subdued because of the loss.

I just luv chemo

Felt like I didn't get any real rest between treatments. I was out of commission all last weekend and Monday. 

Tons of stress at work too  (I know supposed to ignore work stress and focus on health). 

Went to work today set for the beach almost. Hawaiian shirt and sandles with cargos. All the guys at work said I'm already in vacation mode.

Chemo went ok they did have to make 3 attempts to find a vain.

Chili'a after with my Dad & son was awesome.

Back to Chemo

Back at it after my two weeks off. Good news from Oncologist, my markers are down to near normal levels 87. 

A little Set Back

Chemotherapy Chaos

Had an extra week off since I switched my Chemotherapy from Monday back to Friday. I was feeling really good with that extra time without those horrible drugs in my system. The weekend before I had made the decision to stop fighting the hair loss situation and shaved my head completely. I think I look better completely bald than the spotty thin hair that I had. You be the judge, but I think I pull it off.
Spent Thursday night February 6th with Julia her car was in the shop so she was going to drop me off for Chemo and use my car till we could pick her car up. Friday morning Julia dropped me off and I went up to the 3rd floor Chemotherapy room as usual while she took my car to work.
Everything started normally, my parents met me in the waiting room while I checked in. I was a little early and there was one other patient in that had the same appointment time, but the room was packed. As usual that means that there is going to be a wait till they can get me back into the infusion room, kind of stressful which doesn't help the fact that they always question me because my blood pressure is high, (Hello get me pain meds that work!). I took an Ativan to help me calm down and get my blood pressure under control at least a little bit.
I finally got back into the room after 11:00 and started my injections. They began as usual with the magnesium, no problems at all with that. Gemzar went next and they were able to get that at a faster pace than the normal 45 minutes (that would help to make up for the hour and a half wait to get started!)
The nurse then hooked up the Cisplatin. The nurse verified the drug and hooked it up to the IV, a second nurse verified the prescription and signed off on the computer and both walked away. Within a few minutes of the nurse walking away I started to feel a slight tingling and burning in my face. I flagged down one of the nurses working on another patient. She took one look at me and dropped what she was doing and called the other nurses over to me. :-(
The nurses immediately called the doctor on duty to come over and look at me. By that time not only was my face on fire but the right side of my body as well as my throat. It was weird that the right side was feeling it since the IV was in my left arm, but who knows how the body sends the drugs around. I noticed my fingers were swelling, and kind of subconsciously noticed that it was harder for me to see. The doctor ordered the Cisplatin to be disconnected and ordered a dose of Benadryl to be added to my IV. She also told them to add another anti-histamine to be injected.
By this time I'm having trouble breathing because the inside of my mouth is swelling and my throat is tightening. I know I'm obviously having an allergic reaction, but it's weird that this was the 10th time I had received the drug that I was having this reaction to it. The nurses started monitoring my blood Oxygen levels and immediately hooked me up to the Oxygen tank. I'm freaking out now and the nurses are asking about getting the intubation kit ready and if they might need it. I'm feeling extremely scared now, it's hard for me to breathe because my throat is still swollen and I'm having trouble seeing because my eyes are swelling up. I tried to take a selfie to but my swollen fingers couldn't press the button on my phone, I did see the picture though and my face looked like Rocky's as swollen as it was.
After about 5 minutes the doctor ordered another anti-histamine and another round of Benadryl. A minute into that the pressure on my throat started to lessen and I felt the swelling of my eyelids slacken a bit. The burning was decreasing and all around I was beginning to feel better. Dr. Dhuong came by and replaced the other doctor and told me the obvious that I had an allergic reaction to the Cisplatin. He was going to take that drug off of my regimen and just continue with the Gemzar going forward and monitor the tumor markers in my blood work to make sure things are staying stable before making a decision to re-add a second drug or change the strategy all together. The swelling in my face was still bad so he added one more Benadryl order and left me in the capable hands of the nursing staff.
15 minutes later I was 100% back to normal other that the fact that all the Benadryl had me sleepy as hell, it was a good thing that I wasn't driving with all those drugs in my system. Because I wasn't doing the Cisplatin, they didn't need to give me the additional bag for hydration I was free to go. The nurse took out my IV and my parents helped me out to there car. My parents dropped me off at my apartment and for the most part I slept the rest of the day. Glad that I thought to alert the nurse when I did, I don't want to think about what would have happened if I had let more of the Cisplatin get into my system.

 

 

Thanksgiving

A little late with this post, been out of sorts for a while.

Had a blast Thanksgiving, Julia and I drove up to the mountain house to spend the holiday with family. We drove up Wednesday night, my brother and his wife were doing the same. Girls and Alex stayed up with us and talked and lightweight partied till about 1:30 AM or so. Brianna bailed earlier to go into the computer room to play WOW, but we all had a great time.

 

Thanksgiving day my Elisa's parents came up. Her dad was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer almost exactly a year prior. I was glad he came because he and I are going through very much the same things in our lives now.

 

We talked for at least an hour on the supplements and alternative medications he is taking to help with his cancer. The cannabis treatments are really a god-send to helping him with his situation. He had contracted Pancreatitis shortly after his diagnosis so was unable to get started on Chemotherapy until they had gotten that under control. The cannabis helps immensely with keeping the immune system fully functional and keeping the Pancreatitis from re-emerging. Just the fact that he is still here over a year after being diagnosed gave me vast amounts of hope.

 

My First Chemotherapy session

My first Chemotherapy session was scheduled on a Friday. Exactly one week after my preliminary biopsy results came back, 4 Days after my first Oncologist appointment, and less than 24 hours after my Chemotherapy class.

Julia stayed over the Thursday night before and we left the apartment around 8:30 and got to the hospital just after 9:00. My dad was there when we got there and we went up to the 3rd Floor to the Oncology department. Got in line and registered, they were called me in pretty quickly, a good thing because I was freaking out. They walked all three of us to the overflow Chemotherapy room. One of the things they had mentioned in the Chemo class was only one visitor per patient, but that didn't phase Julia and my dad.

 

First thing they did is stick the needle in my hand to start the IV. They took my blood pressure and wow shocker super high. Going through a little bit of stress would cause the high BP so they took another 20 minutes re-testing until they decided to give me something for the anxiety. 1MG of Lorazepam did the trick, BP went down and I was feeling really good. They fired up the IV and started pumping Magnesium into my system. Forty Five minutes later they started with the first Chemo drug. Felt like my whole arm was burning cold. I know that sounds weird but that is what it felt like. Endured that with some help from the nurses wrapping my arm in warm blankets and using some heating pads got through the 50 minutes of that drug. They started the second drug and at that point it was getting a bit crowded in the Chemo room, so the nurse enforced the 1 visitor per patient, and my dad left, and let Julia sit in with me. about half an hour later Julia left to go get my dad, just as I experienced one of this drugs wonderful side effects frequent needing to urinate(it may just have been the fact that they had sent 4 IV bags through my arm at this time.)

 

I got back from walking my beat up body to the bathroom, and my dad was there waiting. He and I hung out for about a half hour and he left to send Julia back in. As she got back the Lorazepam was really starting to work, and the last drug was finishing off. I was high as a kite on the anti-anxiety drug, evident in the shot below.

 



All in all my first Chemo session wasn't too terrible..