"It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult undertaking which more than anything else, will determine its outcome" -William James
January 2nd, 2014 and my new year starts out with my first round of chemo. I hit the cancer center at 10:30 in the morning for bloodwork and consultation with my oncologist. Treatment subsequently started with a round of vitamins, tylenol, and benadryl to help with delivery and side effects of the chemo. I bided the time as best I could would the kids:
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| MADMA Season 9 cliffhanger! |
Next came the chemo - FOLFIRI regimen. The link to each of the drugs and their side effects are listed below, thanks to chemocare.com:
This lasted another SIX HOURS. Thankfully, only the first regimen will be this long, but followup sessions will still last about four hours. So, to pass the time, I rested...
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| Benadryl makes you drowsy! |
Watched a little TV...
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| Phineas and Ferb! |
...and finally at about 5:30 when the regimen had finished, decided to freak out a couple of nurses and the doctor on duty by having an extremely rare side effect to the Irinotecan. You know how sometimes you get that little muscle spasm in your eyelid and your eye twitches? Imagine those spasms in most of your major muscle groups! Thankfully it wasn't painful, just REALLY annoying. I had to laugh though when the doc came in straight from his yoga session without even stopping to put his shoes on! They tried to calm it with more benadryl, but only with the passing of time did the twitches end.
So at 6:30, the nurses sent me on my way, a full 8 hours after arriving in the morning. Not the greatest way to pass the day, but at least I was with my family.
Now it's Saturday, two days removed, and I'm trying to manage the fatigue and the nausea as best I can. I am only eating a fraction of what I normally do, which isn't a bad thing, I just have to take it slow. I find keeping myself as busy as I can takes my mind off of the fatigue as well.
To close today, I would like to thank everyone who has been so encouraging to our family. Please keep me and my family in your prayers, and don't worry, we'll holler if we need anything. I will leave you until next time with a verse to ring in the new year:
"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland." -Isaiah 43:18-19
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