Wednesday, September 24, 2014

The Cycle 5 Chemotherapy Liveblog

Here we go again.

It's now 9:30 and I'm sitting in my chair waiting for the drugs to be delivered. BiL4 is a repeat chemo companion, as Sib4 came down with a cold last night so had to send him as a proxy. Meeting with the oncologist was interesting, to say the least. After the enthusiastic email from my other oncologist telling me that the tumors were shrinking, today's oncologist was something of a wet blanket. 

The things I learned:

1. The current treatment is not intended to cure me of cancer, but just to stabilize the cancer.
2. Basically, the plan is to keep me on chemo as long as a) the cancer responds, and b) I can manage the side effects. If the cancer stops responding, the chemo stops. If the side effects become too much, the chemo stops.
3. Once the cancer starts growing again and/or I've had enough of a break from the chemo to start tolerating it again, I go back on it.

In short, "cancer free" is not the goal they're pursuing. Thus, my Spring of Ignoring Anything and Everything That Even Remotely Relates to Healthcare may not actually happen as it appears worrying about cancer may now be a permanent condition. The best I may be able to hope for is a few weeks's vacation from cancer in between long bouts of chemo cycles. 

Clearly, message consistency is not a strong suit of the oncology group. Whatever. At least I got a week's worth of optimism out of the deal. 

Anyway, on with the live blogging...

9:46 am
All hooked up and waiting for the chemo drugs to be delivered. This time we're on a time table. BiL4 parked in the building and the parking rates jump from $5 to $12 after five hours. We need to either be out the door by 1:30, or BiL4 needs to move his car to restart the clock. I'm hoping for the former. 

10:15 am
Still waiting...

10:42 am
The Avastin is now flowing, and has been for ten minutes or so. (I forgot to do the update when it came. Sorry.) This one doesn't have much immediate effect, so basically the boredom continues. 

11:00 am
Avastin is done, now we're on to the two chemo drugs. Two hours to go. Well, two hours and then the 5-FU push and home pump hook up. 

12:10 am
This time, the chemo's putting me under. Last time I checked it was 11:15, but now it's afternoon. Lost an hour to fatigue and a warmed blanket. 

12:54 am
Infusions are done. Now I just have to wait for my assigned nurse to get back from lunch and hook me up to the pump. She's due back in six minutes, and the hookup usually takes less than ten, so I'm nearly out of here. Then it's off to find lunch.

Don't expect much to happen from this point on so I'm calling this one done so I can shut down the computer and be ready to go as soon as the pump is hooked up.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.