Tuesday, April 28, 2015
May 19th Goal
We met with Dr. Wright yesterday before getting admitted for chemo. The schedule she gave us for the next two rounds (and hopefully the last) will put John's "last" dose of chemo on May 19th. That is also the day our baby turns one year old! Doctor's orders are to not get a fever and stay on that schedule, so we will see how well John's body can follow orders. On May 19th, we won't actually know if that is going to be the last dose or not, but we hope so! Two to three weeks after that dose, John will have his scans to see if all the tumors are gone. If the scans do not have any traces of cancer, then we are done with this cycle of chemo! And for a while we will just have scans every three months. Within 6 months, Dr. Wright hopes John's exhaustion is mostly gone. Within a year, he should have a lot of his strength back. Dr. Wright was pleased with John's weight. He owes his weight stability to the feeding tube still; it has continued to be the best way for him to get his calories. She wants him to keep gaining weight and then start slowly building strength back up.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Fever
John did so great after his last chemo! He got in 3 partial days of work from Wednesday night to Friday. Wednesday was his third day in a row of chemo. Typically at that point he is laying in bed in the dark and not very coherent. On Wednesday he went to his office to work before coming all the way home from the hospital. Then he went to the office again for an hour on Thursday and he worked from home on Friday. It was so unusual and great! We thought for sure with him doing that great that he would avoid a fever this time around. But then on Tuesday John ended up in bed all day. He said that he didn't feel fever sick, just chemo sick. Then Wednesday he started getting feverish so we headed to Huntsman. By Wednesday night close to midnight, John's fever broke and when he woke up Thursday he felt great again. He still had to stay in the hospital until Friday, because once you get admitted with a fever, you have to stay there until your blood counts come up. Once again they didn't ever find an infection.
The next round of chemo was never scheduled because no one knew what to expect after his I/E week since John's body is always full of surprises. So now that John has had his fever and his blood counts are on the rise, we should hear from the doctor tomorrow to see when she wants to do the next dose.
I think it's been a full month since radiation ended. Thankfully, most of the radiation side effects have gone from extreme to either mild or gone. John will go in soon for thyroid testing to see if his thyroid was messed up during radiation. They had given him thyroid medication that would do his thyroid's job and hopefully put his thyroid to sleep during radiation so it wouldn't be affected. Now he has been off the medication for a month, so his body, I guess, should have had time to go back to normal. So they will test that soon so we can find out what happened, if anything, to his thyroid.
The next round of chemo was never scheduled because no one knew what to expect after his I/E week since John's body is always full of surprises. So now that John has had his fever and his blood counts are on the rise, we should hear from the doctor tomorrow to see when she wants to do the next dose.
I think it's been a full month since radiation ended. Thankfully, most of the radiation side effects have gone from extreme to either mild or gone. John will go in soon for thyroid testing to see if his thyroid was messed up during radiation. They had given him thyroid medication that would do his thyroid's job and hopefully put his thyroid to sleep during radiation so it wouldn't be affected. Now he has been off the medication for a month, so his body, I guess, should have had time to go back to normal. So they will test that soon so we can find out what happened, if anything, to his thyroid.
Saturday, April 4, 2015
Last Long Week of Chemo!
We were going to have John's next set of progress scans this month to check the progress he made during radiation, but because he has had about a month delay in his chemo schedule, he won't have scans this month.
On Monday John will go into the hospital for his last long week of chemo. (ifosfamide and etoposide) After that he will finish 3 more weeks of chemo and then have his progress scans. These 4 weeks of chemo will have recovery breaks in between them (ie - one week on chemo, two weeks off chemo, two weeks on, one week off, one week on*). So the four weeks will take about two months to finish. Hopefully the fevers stay away so that we can stick to that schedule without delays and get to the scans sooner. At that point, he will get scanned again. If the scans come back clean, we will be DONE! If the scans show any trace of cancer, the doctor will decide how to proceed with the final rounds of treatment.
Done means that chemotherapy will stop and John will go in every three months for scans to check for cancer.
John's feeding tube has been wonderful. The first week with it was painful from the surgery, but now he doesn't notice it as often. His throat is healing from the radiation burns, so he has an easier time swallowing. His taste buds are messed up, though. Food doesn't taste the way it should. He is eating about a meal a day, but it takes a lot of effort to eat food that tastes like moldy cardboard. He needs to keep eating what he can by mouth to keep all his muscles and digestive systems working. But the feeding tube is a nice alternative for his other two meals a day. The "food" is sent from home health and is basically a high-protein drink that we feed him with a syringe into the feeding tube. For those of you who are curious what it looks like, you can request a picture from John.
*When I say "one week on chemo" I mean that in a week period he will get one treatment-whether that is his half-day, two-day or four-day.
On Monday John will go into the hospital for his last long week of chemo. (ifosfamide and etoposide) After that he will finish 3 more weeks of chemo and then have his progress scans. These 4 weeks of chemo will have recovery breaks in between them (ie - one week on chemo, two weeks off chemo, two weeks on, one week off, one week on*). So the four weeks will take about two months to finish. Hopefully the fevers stay away so that we can stick to that schedule without delays and get to the scans sooner. At that point, he will get scanned again. If the scans come back clean, we will be DONE! If the scans show any trace of cancer, the doctor will decide how to proceed with the final rounds of treatment.
Done means that chemotherapy will stop and John will go in every three months for scans to check for cancer.
John's feeding tube has been wonderful. The first week with it was painful from the surgery, but now he doesn't notice it as often. His throat is healing from the radiation burns, so he has an easier time swallowing. His taste buds are messed up, though. Food doesn't taste the way it should. He is eating about a meal a day, but it takes a lot of effort to eat food that tastes like moldy cardboard. He needs to keep eating what he can by mouth to keep all his muscles and digestive systems working. But the feeding tube is a nice alternative for his other two meals a day. The "food" is sent from home health and is basically a high-protein drink that we feed him with a syringe into the feeding tube. For those of you who are curious what it looks like, you can request a picture from John.
*When I say "one week on chemo" I mean that in a week period he will get one treatment-whether that is his half-day, two-day or four-day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)