Chemo # 6 -- Last one for now?

I'm back in the hospital for what is my last scheduled round of taxol/carbo. I saw a substitute oncologist yesterday, as my regular doctor was out. I was told to schedule a total body CT scan (head, pelvis, abodmen and chest) for April 13th and come back to see my oncologist on April 15th to see what's next. Possiblities, in my mind, include: take a break and schedule spleen removal surgery, just take a break, continue with this chemo, or try another chemo. I also have an MRI for my head tumor on April 3rd and the follow-up with the cyberknife doc on April 10th. So the future battle plan should be in place by April 15th.

Regardless, I am looking forward to even a short break from chemo that I will get by virtue of not getting a 7th round on April 9th. My energy level has been pretty low. My head is definitely improving after finishing radiation. Took about 2 weeks, but the watering eye and the skin irritation is definitely better. The swelling seems to have gone down. I still have a small bump on the side of my head, but I think it's smaller than when I first noticed it in December. It may just be that the bone is distended and maybe that just won't go down readily. I'll have to ask about that.

As for other symptoms, I'm really not noticing anythng in the spleen area, so hopefully that means that the tumor has shrunk even further. I had a bit of a scare when we went to the coast for my birthday last weekend. Sunday, my left hip got a bit sore... kind of stiff and tender right where the hip connects to the femur. It was on the opposite side of where the tumor is and felt more like the stiffness in the muscle I was experiencing during hip radiation. It's mostly gone away now, so I suspect it was related to sitting in the car for hours, which I really hadn't done since September. I also spent several hours sitting on a hard kitchen chair visiting a friend on Sunday. Hopefully that's all it was. Guess the upcoming CT will shed more light on that.

Now for this latest hospital experience. When I saw the oncologist yesterday, I checked in 15 minutes early so I could get my blood drawn and have the results available for the doc. They did not get the blood drawn before they took me to the back where I sat for at least 30 minutes because the substitute doc had not yet arrived. After that appointment they sent me over to get my port accessed and have the blood drawn in the process. They said it would take 15 minutes for the results so I asked the nurse to call with the results to confirm that the chemo would go forward. Darcy and I went to get coffee then arrived at the hospital at 10:30 and checked in. I got a message from the nurse AFTER I had already checked in saying the tests were fine, but wouldn't make it to the hospital until 11 a.m. so if I had any errands I wanted to run I could do that. I figured I'd just head up to my room because they usually have a long questionairre they go through in the room.

This time I was housed on the oncology floor. At least they know what they are doing, but the rooms themselves are not nearly as nice as the SW wing rooms (although I did have a view of the Space Needle). They are also a lot busier up here with some seriously ill patients so I would think I am a pretty low priority for them, which is quite understandable. (Trade-offs) The nurse came in and said they were just waiting for the orders from the doc, then I didn't see him again for another 3 hours. He came in at 2 to say that they had not run a creatin test at my doc's that moring so he needed to draw more blood to send to the lab. That took another hour. So the pre-chemo didn't get started until 3 p.m. -- a new record for late. The taxol didn't get going until 5 p.m. We agreed to run it at a 2.5 hour rate rather than the usual 3 hours to save a little time. We were able to get the carbo started at 7:30. Fortunately, I had two old friends stop by for a visit, one of whom I hadn't seen in more than a year. It was a blast and really made the time fly (Thanks Hattye and Ron!) They left at 11:00 and I got a dose of ativan at 11:30 and dozed off. I was woken frequently through the night for the start of the last dose of carbo (which the nurse said she was running at an 11-hour rate, rather than the usual 12-hour rate) more pre-meds, and multiple vitals checks.

So I'm tired this morning, but actually feel a little better than I did during the last round. I think being at the end of the head radiation really affected how I was feeling then. I'm hoping to be out of here around 12:30 instead the 3 p.m. I was fearing. We'll see. I'm actually unclear as the when that last dose got started since I was pretty sleepy when it got going.

Real Fatigue Sets In

I finished radiation on Wednesday, but have noticed an increase in symptoms from that, including skin irritation, a runny eye, vision problems and pretty significant fatigue. I was back at work on Thursday as usual and was able to finish work by about 3pm. Friday I was feeling OK, but about 2pm I got REALLY tired and went home early. I was hoping I'd perk up a bit with rest, but I have continued to feel exhausted and if anything it seeems to be getting worse. I need to go to work this afternoon but I'm not sure I can last very long seeing clients. I think the next couple weeks, maybe even a month, will be pretty rough. Maybe to the point that I may need to take some time off. My current position isn't that demanding, but I'm having trouble keeping up with it. I was really hoping to work until we figured out if I will do spleen surgery to save up disability time for that time off. We'll see if I can last that long.