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.