‘cancer’ Category
Oncologists play games, too
In preparation for the Wii’s arrival, I went to E.B. Games in Reston yesterday morning right as they opened, to get some games, cables, and extra controllers. As I was paying for my stuff, I noticed that right next to me, browsing the games, was my Oncologist! We chatted for a bit – it’s definitely a little weird running into people in a context you’re not used to. It makes some sense though, since during my last appointment, we ended up chatting about Gameboy games (well, Kathie and he did anyway!)
Chemo #5 went well, though they were busy and it took almost an hour longer than last time. I also got a subcutaneous Aranesp shot at the end, since my red blood counts have been slightly below normal the last three times I was tested. Aranesp causes the bone marrow to produce more red blood cells, similar to how the Neulasta shot I get the day after every treatment causes production of white blood cells.
Our Wii is now hooked up, and we started playing with it last night. It’s still too early to make a full report, but it’s definitely been fun so far. Every store near us was sold out of controllers (Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, Wal-Mart, Toys-R-Us, E.B. Games, GameStop) but after some calling around, I found that the Target in Leesburg had a few left, so I drove there and got the last two controllers… and when I got to the check-out, the person in front of me had a controller too! They’re almost as hard to find as the Wii’s themselves. The Wii comes with Wii Sports (tennis, bowling, baseball, etc.), and I bought Elebits, Rayman, and Zelda. Since the Wii plays all GameCube games too, we still need to finish up Resident Evil 4 which we’ve been playing on the GC for the last few weeks.
Another week, another chemo
Wednesday the 10th was treatment number four out of 12. Today (Monday the 15th) I seem to be on the upswing out of the chemo symptoms, so I’m willing to say I’m 33% done! Number four was much like number three — Thursday I felt pretty good, but by Friday I started feeling it. As usual, the most bothersome side-effect was altered food taste, though this time it was more like I had a continuous bad taste (kind of bitter / metallic) in my mouth all day Friday through Sunday. I also felt much more tired and weak this time around, as well as a little more nauseous, though my oncologist says that’s going to be more common now as the “cumulative effect” of the chemo treatments starts adding up.
In other news, Kathie and I are still casually shopping for a Nintendo Wii without success. We were at E. B. Games yesterday and they said the last couple times they got shipments, there wasn’t a line overnight, just a line right before opening, so hopefully most of the hardcore buyers have gotten their fix and we can have a shot at it soon.
Time flies when you’re feeling good…
Wow, I can’t believe it’s been a week since my last blog entry. The week seems to have gone by really fast, which I guess is because I’ve been feeling mostly good and going to work this week. My only complaints this week are being unusually tired every day up through Wednesday, which is probably to be expected, and having pretty bad headaches also through Wednesday. From discussing with others on the Hodgkin’s Forum, it sounds like many people get similar headaches while going through chemo. I also think my vision has gotten slightly worse (another common complaint during chemo) so I’ll be making an eye doctor appointment soon. Some people say their vision improves again when they’re done with chemo, some say it stays worse.
Another side-effect of chemo — a side effect I don’t mind at all! — is that I get to skip next week’s business trip to Bangalore, India that most of my co-workers are going on. Silver linings…
It’s January 6th and it’s supposed to be a record-breaking 70 degrees here in Northern Virginia, so Kat and I will be taking down our outdoor Christmas lights and decorations this morning, and I’ll probably give my car a quick wash. It sure doesn’t feel like winter, but I don’t really mind! Most of our day will be spent at the Labrador Retriever Rescue annual business meeting. I have a growing list of new features I want to add to the LRR web site, but I need to set aside more time to work on them. After learning PHP programming at the beginning of this year, I’ve almost finished converting the web site from Perl to PHP, and now I’ve just started learning Ruby programming (the “latest and greatest”) so may end up doing it all over again! More likely, I’ll be lazy and will end up with a mix of programs in all three languages :-)
This week is chemo week, so it’s a blood test on Monday (last week was the first week without a blood test since starting), chemo on Wednesday, and Neulasta shot on Thursday.
Number 3
Wednesday last week was chemo #3. The treatment went very smoothly, and a little more quickly than #2. As usual, within half an hour of getting home, I was asleep on the couch. Thursday I felt quite good, which was handy since Bob and Amy — my brother and his wife — came to visit from Long Island. It was great to see them and have a relatively quiet day at home after all the Christmas festivities. Mom, who has been visiting from Florida for the past three weeks to help take care of me as I get used to dealing with chemo, left on the long drive home on Friday morning. Kathie and I took off work this week, but are returning Tuesday, as everything starts to return to normal (as much as possible, anyway).
I’ve had less mouth pain and less altered food taste this time around, which is a welcome change. I feel a little more tired than last time, and napped on the couch Friday and Saturday afternoon. Hopefully in a few days I’ll be back to normal and have another full week of feeling good like last time. That will also mark me as 25% through chemo, having completed three out of 12 treatments and the ensuing side-effects. It’s still hard to believe it will be almost summer by the time I’m done 18 weeks from now. I may also need to deal with the cumulative effects of the chemo drugs after a couple more treatments… time will tell!
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas everyone! It was definitely merry for me, since my entire second week after chemo #2 I felt close-to 100% normal. Yesterday Kathie and her sister spent about four hours cooking, with my mom and I helping wherever we were needed. We ended up with an enormous feast of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, spinach, green beans, mac and cheese, and bread, plus Kathie’s and Jen’s mom made some Korean food. We had 13 people to feed, including sending some food to Kathie’s Aunt and her cousin, who were at home recovering from a car accident they were in the day before. They had to spend the night in the hospital, but thankfully are going to be alright.
Tomorrow is chemo #3. Looking back at my symptom tracker graphs, it really highlights how much better the second treatment went as compared to the first. I’m hoping the rest will be similar, but only time will tell. This past round, the only bad symptoms I had were all food tasting bad for a few days, and the mouth pain, which was not as bad as round 1. I’m just glad Christmas dinner was during a good week!