Chemo 7

The cumulative effects of treatment are starting to kick in. Recovery appears to be taking a little longer than usual. In the past I would have treatment on Wednesday morning and wouldn’t start to decline until Friday evening. This time I started feeling bad Friday morning shortly after the nurse removed my portable IV pump. I had to come home and rest for a while before returning to work that day. Typically, I would be down for the weekend and Monday, but would start to rebound on Tuesday. This time I didn’t rebound until Wednesday morning. I also noticed a numbness in both of my feet extending from the ball of the foot to the toes. I was wondering if this could be the beginning of neuropathy.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

My hair had been thinning quite a bit during the course of treatment. I got it cut the week before, but it just wouldn’t lay right and I didn’t want to be one of those guys with the dreaded comb-over. I mentioned to my wife a few days before that I was think about shaving it all off. I went to Supercuts on Friday and got it high and tight. I got home that evening and my wife was in shock. I wasn’t real happy with the remaining stubble on top so I decided to shave the rest of it off. My wife kept staring at my bald head the entire evening, but the new look eventually grew on her. All I needed now was a lollipop…”who loves ya baby”?

Chemo 6

I saw the oncologist on Monday and he said that I’m doing great and that we could probably reduce the number of treatments from 12 down to 11 and I should be finished up around the 18th of November. He also informed me that the genetic testing for mutations in DNA mismatch repair genes came back negative, so good news for the family.

Chemo 5

Having that extra week of recovery made a huge difference not only in my physical health, but my mental health as well. I’m confident that I’ll be able to power through the remaining treatments. It probably won’t be easy, especially toward the end, but I feel like I can handle it knowing that I’ll have a few days of feeling like a human being between treatments.

Chemo 4

I saw my oncologist this morning during my chemo session and we discussed the problems I had been experiencing with extreme fatigue and I was starting to show signs of depression. My platelet counts were low and I began experiencing spontaneous nose bleeds over the past week. Cold sensitivity from the Oxialplatin lingered and the recovery window from chemo, days when I felt halfway descent was down to about 3 days between treatments. This was especially, disturbing since Oxilaplatin can cause neuropathy in the feet and hands and being diabetic already increases my risk of neuropathy. He changed my treatment schedule from that point on from every 2 weeks to every 3 weeks. Allowing me a little more recovery time. He also wanted to get some genetic testing done to rule out problems with DNA mismatch repair.

Downward spiral

Chemo has really been kicking me this week. I was able stick it out on Monday and work the whole day, but I had to go home Tuesday at noon. I had to stay home yesterday morning, except for a oncology visit and I wasn’t able to make it to work until 10:30 AM this morning. When I saw the PA at the oncologist’s office yesterday my blood pressure was still low, e.g. 102/60. She said low BP is typical with chemo and recommended that I cut my BP med dose in half, which I did last night. Three things are dragging me down, chemo, low BP and high blood glucose from steroids, which are given prior to chemo infusion. If it’s this bad now I can’t image what it’s going to be like 5 months from now.

Chemo 3

Cold sensitivity kicked in right away and I’ll be dealing with that for the next week. Felt pretty good yesterday, but wasn’t able to sleep well last night because of the steroids. Today has been going well so far, but I’m sure fatigue will begin to set in tomorrow after they remove the portable pump. I’ll probably be feeling drained this weekend, but such is life when you’re on treatment. I’m still drinking a lot of water and trying to walk as much as I can, which has been helping.