Chemo II: Update

It has been four days since my second chemo treatment. So far no hurricanes but the other side effects have come back. In the mornings I generally have more energy than later in the day. I am more tired during the day and fatigue has set in. As I mentioned one of the best things I have found for fatigue is to get up and walk around a bit or do something basic. This evening I went out to the store to pick up a prescription refill. Sue would have gone but it was good to get out of the house for a few minutes and I choose a time when it wouldn't be busy. I have found that it is definitely good to get up and at least a bit active during the day. Sometimes that may just be walking around on a single floor.

I am adjusting to having the feeding tube. It is hard to pin point what causes what side effects but I am learning some basics about the tube. The first thing is that right after doing a feeding I should recline just a bit for about 15 minutes to give my stomach time to settle. Getting right up and starting to clean up is not the best idea I have found. This technique seems to have reduced the indigestion and the amount of "formula" flavored burbs. :-)

One thing I am doing during the feedings to keep my mind preoccupied is watching some mindless TV. Lately I have been watching the Food Network or as I like to call it the "Food Porn" channel. It may seem a bit strange to watch cooking shows when I can't eat food right now but I find it actually helps me. I am getting lots of great ideas for things to put on my food list.

One of the side effects that has come back from the last chemo is I am having a lot of mucus discharge from the sinus area. At first I thought this was from being backed up and it was released after the first chemo and start of the radiation treatments. Since then I have asked some questions and mucus is one of the bodies ways of dealing with dead cells. I like to think that the second wave of ground troops (The chemo treatments) have made their first strike and the mucus is a sign of the cancer cells being killed. This is something I will have to ask the radiation oncologist about tomorrow.

Monday will be a milestone for the radiation treatments. That will be treatment number 18 with 17 left. Just a bit beyond the half way point. Yippee! I know that the last half will be a bit of a rough ride and that there is more chemo afterwards but getting to the halfway point is a nice milestone. As I mentioned in a previous post there are also some visible effects to the radiation. The hair on the back of my head at the base did fall out. This is one of the 7 target areas. Also some on one side above my ear. Nothing major but there was some radiation fallout. :-)

The other radiation side effect is I am starting to notice some skin burn. This will be worse and there are some treatments for it. The radiation oncologist mentioned that when the tumors shrink the skin irritation could get worse. I view that as a small price to pay if the treatments are working. Hopefully when they adjust the treatment plan some of that will be minimized.

Chemo Part II: Day II No Hurricanes so far.

Day II went pretty well. The biggest challenge is keeping up on the feedings and in particular water. I have found that two 8 ounces cans of the "food" I am supposed to take at a time is pretty hard. It just fills me up too much. I am working up towards that but it will take some time. Today I did hit 1500 calories, a bit short of the goal, but I also got in 64 ounces of water. One of the big things with Cisplatin is to consume 64 ounces of liquid a day for the first 3 days to get it out of your system. This helps avoid kidney and liver damage. I think the stuff they gave me for feedings counts but I am also taking in extra water through the tube just to be sure.

The other thing different this time is that I started right off with the medications when I got home. That also seems to have helped. The only really discomfort is from indigestion after the feedings. I think that has to do with the volume. The belt setup arrived yesterday to hold the feeding tube and that has worked out real well. The company, NedMed, was great to deal with. I couldn't find a reseller with it in stock so I sent the company an e-mail to get pricing and where to order it. They were able to sell it to me directly and bill me for it based on an e-mail. Very consumer friendly. The shipping fees were very reasonable and it arrived in 3 business days. They are a small company but I would recommend their products to anyone. The person that answered my e-mail even took the time to read through my blog and with me luck with the treatment.

The other change from the last chemo treatment is that I have been under going radiation treatments now for 3 weeks. While my throat has gotten worse over the course of the treatments I have noticed this last week that the radiation has had less of an impact on how I feel afterwards. It is only speculation but I think that the tumor was putting a lot of pressure on several areas in my sinuses. As the tumor in that area was getting zapped and started to shrink other areas were moving around as the pressure was relieved. There was also a lot of mucus that was released. I think these changes may have accounted for some of how I felt a few hours after each treatment. That appears to have eased at this point. Right now the big thing is fatigue. Even that seems to be better than last time but I do need to take naps during the day. In another post I will talk about one of the other effects of radiation and that is skin irritation and some hair loss.

Chemo Part II

On tap for today was my second chemo treatment. This one started off a bit awkward but so far I appear to be doing better than last time. Here is what happened. My first Chemo treatment was at the hospital because the medical oncologist chemo area was booked to capacity. The hospital offers several advantages for chemo in my situation. First it is on the same floor and in the same building as radiation medicine. I was able to just walk over from chemo to the radiation facility when it was time to get treated. Keep in mind it can take 6 plus hours to deliver the chemo that I am getting. The second advantage is that they have public wifi access at the hospital. I was able to bring my notebook and catch up on e-mail, do some work, update the blog etc. Also the facility at the hospital is a bit more roomy, offered more privacy and they had TV's for each station.

So at my first treatment the people at the hospital scheduled me to be there for the second treatment. I was already scheduled to be at the medical oncologist office but we agreed that it would be better if I was there. Last week when we had our appointment with the medical oncologist (who didn't make the appointment, we saw the nurse practitioner instead.) we mentioned that I was scheduled to be at the hospital and why. The nurse practitioner agreed, or at least we thought so.

This morning I showed up at the hospital and they called to check on the meds with the medical oncologist and the medical oncologist decided that they really wanted me at their facility. They really didn't have much of a reason for it other than they wanted to monitor me but they insisted on it. I explained that I used the public wifi for work but the doctor said that wasn't something they could consider. So off I went to the medical oncologist office. They are located in a set of buildings in front of the hospital so it only took a minute or two to get there.

Once there it took awhile to get started. I asked them about the radiation treatment that was scheduled for that day and they really didn't have much of a plan. Fortunately the radiation office is very flexible and they let them move the appointment around. This time the chemo took all of 6 hours to deliver. The last radiation appointment available was 3:30 and I was literally leaving the chemo office at 3:25. Because of the scheduling conflict they offered to drive me over to the radiation office. For the next chemo treatment they do have me scheduled at the hospital. I think they figured out that with the radiation treatments and the length of my chemo it just makes it easier to coordinate.

So far I am not having the same reaction I had last time. This time we are being proactive and taking an additional anti nausea medicine once I got home along with another drug they prescribed when I had the reaction last time. I also think part of it is that I have not eaten as much prior to the chemo. Last time it was my first treatment. In the week before I had had several large meals prior to starting treatment. Kind of a culinary going away party. While tasty it may not have been the best idea. :-)

I will post more tomorrow to update on the progress but so far so good.