Take Three

Round Three

Here we are back at the hospital for the third round of chemo.  As of Tuesday afternoon when we get discharged I'll be halfway through the chemo treatments.  I'm going to like the sound of 50%!  We're old hands by now at being in the hospital - we know several of the nurses well and know the routine.  We planned ahead to leave some thank you notes for a few of our favorites since we (hopefully) will never see them again!  As we look ahead to doing the remaining rounds as outpatient we look forward to sleeping in our own bed, eating our own food, and being able to move around without Perv.  I also won't have someone checking my vitals every few hours.  It's official: I have a heart.  They detect it every time.

Updates

Since there's not much new to report in hospital-land, I thought I'd take this opportunity to give you a few updates.  First, many of you ask about my father-in-law, Art, who is also struggling with cancer.  He's just begun what will be his final chemo treatment and it will be a relatively low dose almost once/week for 6 months.  I got us matching hats and here's proof that we're in good spirits:

I also thought I'd let you see my best Smigel imitation and update you on my hair loss.  I had expected to lose more hair at the two-week mark post-chemo in Round Two but I didn't so I'm not sure if my hair will stay like this throughout or whether I'll continue to lose more in future rounds.  We've been told that by the end many patients lose their eyebrows and eyelashes so I expected to lose a little more each time but that wasn't the case this last time.  Only time will tell.  In the meantime, I lost almost all of my hair and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.  (By lousy I mean super great, of course.)

Another update worth mentioning is my voice....the symptom that started it all.  Though we know Louie is a shadow of his former self, I am still struggling with my voice.  It's getting extremely annoying at this point but my oncology doctor thinks it will just take time.  I potentially have several issues working against me: in addition to what I call "chemo voice", which is an expected symptom while getting infusions and until the chemo works itself out of my system a few days later, my doctor guesstimates that Louie may have caused some nerve damage and apparently nerves do heal themselves but slowly.  Also, the chemo kills off the fast-growing cells in my mouth/throat/whole GI tract so it could be that I'm just not bouncing back as quickly in that regard since that's a weak spot already.  After the first round, my voice was more normal in my good week but after the second round it never regained its strength.  Basically her advice to me was "patience, grasshopper".  (Not really my style, as you know.)  In the meantime, I sound like I've been smoking Lucky Strikes for about three decades.

My favorite nurse of all is doing well too.  Here's a photo of him in action - doesn't he look like he knows what he's doing?  Fake it 'til you make it, that's what we say.  And since he hasn't killed me yet, I've allowed him to stay on the job:

Scott has been running nearly every day again and it feels really good to both of us to see him get back into a normal routine.  He was even able to arrange a little work happy hour last week and go spend time with friends doing normal adult things (gossiping and drinking beer).

And one last update, though none of you has asked.  Grace is doing fine.  Her contribution to my care is no different than it has ever been; i.e., it's about her.  She basically just uses me as a napping and bathing station and is happy that my lap is finally available more often, though I do sometimes disturb her zen with my presence:

That's all the updates that are fit to print.  A very merry Christmas and belated Hanukkah to you and yours.  I'll write again in a few days...