Normal Day

Hi. My cancer blog has focused on my cancer. This may seem like an odd statement for those of you living outside of cancer world. In reading other people’s cancer blogs, they focus on friends, family, trips, current activities, their cancer, feelings, and their cancer treatments. Being a private person, I rarely talk about anything other than life aspects directly connected to my disease.

This blog entry is not breaking with that tradition. But, yesterday was exciting to me, I had an almost normal day. I went to the beach near my house, got mildly sunburned on my legs (87 degrees and sunny out), I took a silly 2 hour bus tour of a historic city (although silly, it was educational and entertaining), and had lobster bisque soup at a boardwalk restaurant next to a water channel overlooking a bay with lots of small yachts and sail boats coming and going. My eating wasn’t pretty. A few napkins were required, but so what. Although the restaurant was a bit noisy, my new mouth piece now allows me to speak over the noise without the effort of shouting. This is a major victory. We left the house at 10 AM and got home at 9 PM. Other than trips to the cancer center, I’m sure I haven’t been out of the house for that length of time since my major operation in July 2006. Taking some illness-related paraphernalia with me for the day took a little extra preparation time to get ready for this outing. Overall, it was close to a normal day and I thoroughly enjoyed that part of it almost as much as the day’s activities themselves.

I don’t expect much new news in the near future and as such don’t expect to be writing blog updates as often as in the past. My next chemo is on March 26th. I have 7 different appointments scheduled at the cancer center for that day. That day too will be normal. Not the kind of normal that I like, but normal to me nonetheless.

Thanks for checking in. Take care.

CT Scan Results – Negative for Disease

I got 2 brief emails today. One from my chemo doctor and the other from his physician assistant. My CT scan from Wednesday night showed no evidence of cancer. Obviously, that’s terrific news. It’s what I was expecting and I‘m pleased. It doesn’t mean I’m cured, but the longer I can hold off the disease, the better my chances are that it will not return. My last operation to remove confirmed cancer cells was in October 2007, 5 months ago. If I can make it 6 – 9 more months with clean scans, I’ll begin feeling much more comfortable. As for the current chemo regimen, it will continue for the time being. That’s the other hurdle, what happens when the chemo stops? I think of it as another situation for my body to be tested somewhere down the road.

Thanks for checking in. Have a great weekend. Take care.

No Pain, No Gain

I had chemo cycle 9 round 5 yesterday. It was a long day at the cancer center. I left the house at 9:00 AM and got back home at 9:30 PM. I accomplished a lot and therefore feel good about the day. It was busy, but with an incredible amount of waiting. Here’s a summary: 1) blood drawn, 2) oncology clinic visit, 3) speech therapy visit, 4) chemo (waited 4 hours for the orders to get from the oncology unit to the chemo unit - ugh), 5) missed dental oncology visit due to the late chemo timing, 6) supportive care clinic visit (waited, but wasn’t in a big rush), and 7) CT scan with contrast (waited – watched 3 episodes of Scrubs to pass the time away at the end of a long day). It was a full day in the life of a cancer survivor (or victim). I can’t decide which term to use today. It varies by mood.

All of my clinic/therapy visits were terrific. The care and devotion shown by these specialists are awesome. Plus, a friend that I’ve made during this journey who works at the hospital took time out while I was getting my chemo and visited with me. That too was terrific. I got one needle stick and 2 different IVs during the day. They were all successful on the first try. Yahoo. I’m calling the clinical trial to help me with fatigue a success. The supportive care unit is now working with me on a few other symptom management areas.

I hope to have the CT scan results back by Monday. I am expecting them to be clean and will be disappointed if they’re not. I don’t feel any new lumps or bumps. I believe the pain and other symptoms I have are chronic and a result of prior treatments, not cancer. I guess the saying “no pain, no gain” really does apply here. I’ll post the results soon after I get them. This chemo cycle began December 11 2007. At the time, my doctor said it should continue for 6 to 12 months or as long as I could tolerate it. It’s been 3 months and I’m tolerating it okay. As long as the scan results are clean, I suspect I’ll continue the chemo for awhile longer. If they’re not, we’ll have to regroup.

I hope all of you are feeling good and healthy. Thanks for checking in. Take care.

Mid Cycle Update

My side effects this chemo cycle have been relatively mild. I seem to be able to more-than-less control them through medication. The clinical trial I began a week ago to alleviate fatigue has worked for me. I say this with some hesitation. As mentioned in the prior blog entry, this is a double blind study. As such, I don’t know whether I’m getting a drug or a placebo. But, whichever it is, it’s working. On the 1 to 10 scale where 1 is no fatigue and 10 is the worst fatigue; I was pretty much at a steady 5 on average prior to last week. I must qualify this by saying my scale is different today than before cancer. In today’s world, a 1 means I feel like I can begin doing a light workout. In the world before cancer, I would have rated myself an 8 or 9 on the fatigue scale. Cancer has a way of changing your perspective on many fronts. The new drug I’m taking has lessened my fatigue level to a 2 or 3. That’s a major improvement both physically and mentally. I found an article on the Internet addressing the use of a drug for cancer-related fatigue. Here’s the URL for those that are interested…

http://www.cancerwise.org/april_2004/display.cfm?id=165dd531-c8c3-422c-bdcbde72034d9f8c&method=displayfull&color=green

I asked the clinical trial administrator if I would ever find out whether it is the drug or the placebo that I’m taking. She wasn’t sure, but will try to find out. I’ll let you know the answer if I get one.

The only other news of note is an upcoming CT scan. It’s scheduled for March 5th. The results will be available around March 10th. Given my history, scan results can at best be neutral news (no clear evidence of disease) and at worst bad news. My last scan was in mid November. Here again, I’ll keep you posted.

I finished two more novels by Lee Child. For those interested in action, suspense, puzzles, and clues, this may be a good read. I know I have enjoyed his works.

I hope all of you are feeling good and healthy. Thanks for checking in. Take care.

Mixed Feelings

It was a good day at the cancer center yesterday. I should be happy today, but more than anything else, I’m feeling tired. I won’t go through the blow-by-blow details of yesterday’s visit; here’s a summary. I met with my chemo doctor. He is scheduling a scan for early March, he thinks I look good, we talked for awhile, and he sent me off for chemo which was later in the day. I visited with the Supportive Care unit. They used to be called Palliative Care. The doctor I met with there explained that they do more than end of life treatments. They also treat symptoms and provide counseling. She recommended a clinical trial to address my fatigue. I read the paperwork and agreed to participate in the clinical trial. It will take place over a 7 week period. The first two weeks will be with a drug or a placebo (it’s a double-blind study meaning the administrator of the study nor the subject (in this case myself) knows whether or not I’m getting the drug or the placebo). The next five weeks will be with the drug. I have a daily log book and will receive survey calls 3 times per week to assess how I’m feeling and my activity level. I had to answer an extensive questionnaire, take a few cognitive tests to establish a baseline, and also one physical test. I will begin taking the drug/placebo on Saturday. The drug has been on the market for a long time, but not in the treatment of fatigue due to cancer. It would open a whole new market for this drug if successful. I then visited my dental oncologist and finished the fitting for my new mouth prosthetic. It will take a few weeks to get used to, but it makes a noticeable positive difference in the quality of my voice. For that I am truly thankful. Lastly, I had my chemo. The nurse got my IV going on the first stick, which is good, but she may have punctured the underside side of the vein in the process. That’s not unusual. I’ll be able to tell within the next 24 hours if it turns black and blue. This all took place over about a 7 hour period. That’s pretty good when compared to past visits.

Happy Valentine’s Day. Thanks for checking in. Take care everyone.

Duration Test

A friend of mine told me a few years ago that having cancer and treating it was more like the challenges one faces in running a marathon than in running a sprint. It’s basically a long drawn out process. That is not true in every case (some people become cured and some people die quickly from the disease), but it sure is true in my case. It’s been a tough weekend. I’ve been under the weather. Severe headache, nausea, chills, and skin/muscle tightness in places where I was treated with radiation and surgery. It’s similar to having flu like symptoms. However, I don’t have any fever and therefore don’t think that I have the flu. It’s probably chemo related, but I’m not sure. The symptoms began on Friday night and are continuing though tonight (Sunday). It’s disappointing because my last IV treatment was 2.5 weeks ago and up until Friday night, the side effects had been relatively minor, some fatigue and neuropathy (feet/toe numbness). It’s times like this where one has to just lay back and hope that the discomfort fads quickly and that tomorrow will be a better day. Bottom line, this cancer stuff is just plain old tiring right now.

That’s all for now. Thanks for checking in. Take care everyone.

Mid Chemo Round Update

It’s been 9 days since my last chemo treatment and 12 days until my next one. This round has been relatively mild from a side effect perspective. I’m still fighting fatigue, but not severe fatigue. I tried cutting back on my pain/anxiety medicine, but that little experiment proved to be uncomfortable. My current dosing is relatively low. I’m at 50% of the maximum daily dose for one of the lesser strength prescription pain medicines and at about 20% of maximum daily dose for my anxiety medicine. Ideally, I’d like to be at no medication. The self imposed cut back severely disrupted my sleep for almost a week. Lack of a good sleep made me generally uncomfortable. As such, yesterday I went back to the dose that helps me get by.

I had an interesting phone conversation with someone today. We didn’t know each other (she was a representative at a company where I bank). We began to talk about my speech impediment. She said her sister had a brain aneurysm which caused her to have a speech impediment, but it did not impact her cognitive abilities. She went on to say that her sister was very frustrated by this because she had trouble communicating with people and people treated her differently. She then said, “you must be frustrated.” Ah ha, (the proverbial light bulb went off in my head) that is the perfect word for how I feel, “FRUSTRATED.” Okay, I said it. I like to talk and communicate, but it’s hard for me to do so in a way that I feel is normal, especially over the phone. This is not a complaint; I’m trying to share with those that read my blog how I feel. I’m looking forward to my new month prosthetic that will be ready in about a month. They took a mouth impression last week and it will take about 3 fittings to get it right. The first fitting is this coming Monday. I hope I’m being realistic about what this device will do for me. Once it’s fitted properly, it will take a few weeks to get used to. I’ll let you know how it works.

That’s all for now. Thanks, as always, for checking in. Take care everyone.