October 2010

Wow, it's been a while since I've updated this! When I last left off, I was still receiving the basic treatment and things were going well. One of my CT scans showed signs of the growths on my lungs starting to show up a little more noticeably. This result prompted my doctor to elect to put me back onto the oxaliplatin chemotherapy. Hearing that things weren't still going as planned was such a shock. Not quite as shocking as my initial diagnosis, but it blindsided me. I was a bit shaken because I knew that the next few months weren't going to be enjoyable since I knew what to expect from my previous experience with this treatment. The side effects would make me incredibly tired, nauseous, and sensitive to cold. The only problem with this treatment was that it is very risky to re-introduce it back into your body. My body was already trained to recognize that this stuff was going to wreak havoc on my system and really throw me for a loop. The first treatment didn't go too bad, it was just difficult getting used to the idea that I would have to be hooked up to the IV for two hours at the hospital instead of the thirty minute treatment I was used to. The next few treatments didn't go as well though. There is a high risk of having reactions to the treatment when it is brought back into the regiment, sometimes it could even be fatal. On my second treatment, I awoke about halfway through the process with incredibly itchy palms, a rash on my face and chest, and profuse sweating. I felt fine, but apparently that's when there is a very large risk that your throat will close and you could stop breathing. I don't always take risks like that too seriously, but once there were five nurses and one doctor all in my room taking measurements and hooking me up to machines to take my vitals, I realized just how serious this was. It reminded me of the scenes you'll see on tv in the medical shows when a patient is "coding." It was a pretty scary incident, but I was given some incredibly powerful sedatives similar to benadryl and don't really remember the rest of that night or the day after. My next treatment was to be drawn out to take four hours instead of two. The reasoning behind this was that maybe a slower infusion would mean that my body would not react quite so harshly. Well, that didn't help either. I reacted pretty much the same way and was treated to the same dose of sedatives to help curb the effects. The ensuing treatments pretty much went the same way and I simply decided I would have to suck it up and do whatever the doctor deemed best. The oxaliplatin treatments lasted about five times when the doctor finally decided to go back to the old routine of the 5FU and leukavorin which was such a relief. That's about where I am now with the treatments, but my next posts will get into the formation of the foundation as well as some new genetics testing which is now available.