Chemo Treatment #2



Hello from the Galter Pavillion!

The week that Donny received his first chemo treatment (November 13) was rough, but the second week was much better.  Day by day he gained more energy, the chest pains went down, and he was able to do more activity.  In fact, we are even noticing improvements in his chronic cough.  Although he does have a cold now, which we are monitoring, his chronic cough is getting better.  Donny used to hack up a lung when he came up the stairs to our 3^rd floor apartment and his coughing has decreased significantly in the past two weeks.  I don’t want to be naïve and think that he’s cured already, but I am taking this improvement as a sign that the chemo is working.
 

We were also able to celebrate Thanksgiving with both our families, his for an early dinner and mine for a late dinner.  Naturally, since Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, this made me happy.  I felt like the kids in Talladega Nights when they found out their parents were getting divorced, “Yeah, two Christmases!!!”  Only I was thinking, “Yeah, two Thanksgiving dinners!”  The food was delicious and it was wonderful to be surrounded by the people we love all day.

This past Tuesday, November 27, Donny had his second round of chemo.  He brought an iPad this time, so he was quite content playing games.  Donny had labs done before the nurse could begin administering the chemo and they came back fine.  Although, his white blood cell count is 2.6, which is below the normal 3.5 – 10.5.  This basically means that Donny barely has an immune system to fight off any infection, disease, etc.  But that is why Donny is on 4 different antibiotics; to fight infections for his insufficient immune system.  I was freaking out yesterday though because I’m not feeling well at all.  I actually think I got the cold that Donny has; only mine is getting worse, or maybe I’m making it up, but I think it’s getting worse.  My throat is scratchy and my head is killing me.  And our apartment is tiny with only 4 different rooms, so what the heck am I supposed to do?  I’m terrified that if I get sick he’ll catch what I have, so I called my aunt to ask for her advice.  My uncle was immune suppressed a good majority of his adult life because he had a number of different transplants.  So my aunt is, unfortunately, quite knowledgeable when it comes to dealing with this.  She basically just told me, wash your hands, sleep on the couch and call your doctor and get a prescription immediately.  So that’s what I’m doing.  This whole time I was so worried about Donny getting sick from other people, I never even thought about what I would do if I got sick.  And truthfully, I’m not really that sick.  Normally, I would just pound Vitamin C for a week and be fine, but because of Donny, I’m a little paranoid.  But my aunt assured me that it’s better to be paranoid and overly cautious than to let this turn into some infection, have Donny catch it and then have him hospitalized because of it.

 

All in all, the second chemo treatment went well.  The nurse was with us for the first hour or so ‘pushing’ the first two drugs and then we waited for another hour or so while the IV with the last two drugs dripped.  Both times we’ve had connections to the nurses, so that’s been nice to talk with them. The first nurse dated one of Donny’s friends from college, and the second nurse went to Marquette with a couple of people who lived in Elmhurst with me.  I tried reading my book, but I couldn’t really concentrate because of my nerves and it’s a small room so it’s not that comfortable, so talking with the nurses makes the time go by much quicker!

 

I was surprised by how anxious I was about this second treatment and I’m not really sure why I was so anxious.  I felt bad because there was construction on my way home from work, and I couldn’t find me jeans to change into so I was scrambling to get ready for the appointment.  And then Donny and his mom were trying to talk to me on the car ride there and I just was a ball of anxiety, so I wasn’t really talking.  I hope I didn’t come off like a complete brat, but I just didn’t realize how anxious I was for this appointment until we were on the way to Northwestern.   I think I was more anxious about how sick Donny would get after the treatment more than the actual treatment itself.  But Donny seems to be doing better this time than he was last time.  Wednesday he was tired, but felt pretty good and his coughing went down.  And this morning he said his stomach wasn’t right again, not nauseous, but not right.  But other than that, he said he’s feeling pretty well.  So I’m relieved about that, but I don’t want to kid myself yet.  Friday will be the true test.  That’s the day when Donny felt the worst last time, so we will see this time around.

 

It’s funny how, no matter what knowledge you have about this process, it’s still a day by day thing.  I could read all the books and talk to hundreds of cancer survivors and their stories will still be different than ours.  The thing that is the hardest for me is that just when Donny seems to be back to normal, he’ll have another treatment and start the cycle all over again.  But if this is what we need to do for him to get better, I’m ok with that.  Now I keep thinking, only two treatments left until we know if the chemo is working or not.  January 4, Donny gets the CT and PET scans done again.  Hopefully they’ll show the cancerous activity has stopped and the tumors have shrunk.  Until then...bring it on.

As promised, here is a picture of Donny's port connected to the IVs.  This is on the left side of his chest.  I can't help it, but I call these his tentacles. LOL  It's weird watching the red chemo go in because you can see the bright red fluid flowing through those tubes that you can barely see now.