Round One: A Recap

As I move forward with the blog I'll write a little more about each round as I'm experiencing it but in the spirit of launching the blog out into the world and with Round One ending in two days, here's a sense of how this has gone.

Phase One: The Hospital

We had very little notice that we were going to be in the hospital.  Our first meeting with my oncologist was on a Thursday afternoon, November 9th, at 3:30 and I was admitted Friday morning at 8:00.  During the intervening hours we were in a fog - but I went to Supercuts and got a pixie cut (cut about 10" of hair), packed as a person would who had never before stayed in a hospital (did a poor job of guessing, in retrospect), and tried to ready our house and our cat to be alone for five days.

The first morning in the hospital I had a procedure done to insert what they call a Hickman Catheter into the upper righthand side of my chest.  This will be with me throughout the process.  It has two ports that come out of it and it goes directly into my vena cava.  (By the way, anytime I use language that sounds scientific in any way, shape, or form, assume that I have no idea what I'm talking about and am simply repeating what I've heard said aloud in my presence.  I still don't science.)

During chemo, I had an infusion bag hooked into these ports for 24 hours/day.  My treatment is a five-day treatment involving a cocktail of 6 different drugs (this is the only cocktail I get to have for the next several months so it might as well be strong).  For those of you who like to Google things, it's called R-EPOCH.  My infusion bags are hung from an IV tree and that tree is with me at all times.  I named my tree Perv.  He follows me into the bathroom, watches me shower...it's kind of creepy.  I'll be reunited with Perv soon, which should really float his boat.

Phase Two: The Side Effects

There are certainly some side effects during the treatment and they are pumping me with all sorts of drugs to prevent/lessen them as I'm receiving the infusions but once released from the hospital the following ten days at home brought a whole new collection of joys.  Among them: mouth sores, bloating, constipation, not constipation, and back pain.  The combination of mouth sores, constipation, and not constipation made eating a real challenge so during this round I did lose more weight than I would have liked.  During this time Scott also has to give me a shot every day in order to try to boost my dropping white blood cell count.  

And let's not forget about the Hickman - Scott has to flush both ports each day with two different injections, saline and blood thinner.  Since the Hickman was new, it had to be bandaged and that bandage had to be well covered in order for me to shower, which was always a somewhat comical process when left to our own devices at home.  Let's just say there was Cling Wrap involved at one point and that didn't go well.  Next time you wrestle with plastic wrap of any kind while trying to cover a dish, think of me.  At this point the Hickman is no longer covered so at least the Cling Wrap Phase is behind us.

Also during Phase Two I am getting blood draws twice/week.  In an ideal world, blood could be drawn from my Hickman ports but that takes a trained oncology nurse and at the Longmont Kaiser location there's no such person so back to the old-fashioned needle in the arm approach.  With the blood thinner every day, shots every day, and blood draws twice/week, I sort of look like I'm well versed in drug paraphernalia. 

Phase Three: The "Good" Week

I've been asking myself what the oncology team means by "good" when thinking about this good week.  This is the week in which I imagined I might return to work a bit but that seems pretty unrealistic in the moment.  If we can do a better job with preventing some of the side effects during Phase Two in upcoming rounds, then perhaps Phase Three will be better as well.  During this week of this first round I am attempting to gain weight and am getting ready to go back into the hospital.  I'm also trying to walk more so as to build my strength back up.  Don't get me wrong: I feel much, much better than in Phase Two and I am able to keep up with work more regularly from afar but I am not getting out of the house much and keeping up with my regimen of pills and eating is basically a full-time job.

Shout out to all of the retirees in my life: you're right - you never have any idea what day it is and it takes at least half the day just to get showered, dressed, and take all of the pills.  I will no longer make fun of you.  (I probably will.)

I'll start the blog posts back up during Round Two so you can follow along if you wish.