Thank you all for checking in on me and reading my blog. I have not contributed anything new in a while. I have been focusing on updating the old blog as well as putting up some pics. I do not have the current pics of me but once I find my camera I will post some current pictures. If you want to find out some of the history of what has happend to me in the past, read my older post.

I just finished the first treatment of chemotherapy. It was a 28 day treatment and was the A course. I am currently undergoing chemotherapy in the B course. Once I am done with the B course I will start the rotation again and do the A and B courses two more times. The first set of chemotherapy went well and I want to thank you all for your support!!!! Thanks for the words of encouragement, phone calls, the gifts, the cards, but most of all thanks for your prayers. You all have made this experience easier and have helped me along every step of the way. Because of the intensity of the chemotherapy that I received for the A course they were expecting mouth sores, nausea, loss of appetite, peripheral neuropathy (numbness of the fingers and toes), and of course hair loss. It also intentionally kills off all of your white blood cells, so you become neutropenic (no immune system). The doctors gave me medicine to prevent nausea and it worked amazingly well, because I did not get any. I also did not have any mouth sores. I did however, get some numbness of my fingertips, but it is minimal. I did not lose my appetite and I was able to eat the entire time. Despite the fact that I was eating I did lose about 20 pounds. I had some weight to lose so losing 20 pounds wasn’t a big deal at all. I also lost my hair…well I didn’t lose it in the traditional way that chemotherapy patients lose it. I knew that it was going to fall out so I preempted the hair loss and decided to get a mohawk. I will include pics later so you can enjoy the look. I had red, blue, and green colored styling glue (also known as “gel” for your older types and “product” for all you metro’s out there) so I would change the color of the Mohawk daily. It was good to keep the doctors on their toes every day. The mohawk only lasted for about two weeks before it started falling out so I shaved my head. Because I still have my eyebrows and eyelashes so it looks like I shave my head to hide the fact that I am balding. I was also neutropenic for the last 15 days of the treatment. That meant that I was not able to interact with public or go outside without wearing a mask to prevent getting any kind of infection or sickness. They gave me a shot called neulasta. It increases your body’s ability to produce white blood cells and increase my immune system. The problem with the shot is that since your bone marrow is producing more blood my bones started hurting. It wasn’t that bad because I had my good friend by my side…Mr. Oxycodone. He was by my side for three days and I appreciated every minute of his company.

I did have a couple of complications. The doctors installed what is called a peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC). This is a catheter that they insert in my arm to allow them to administer medicine via an IV as well as draw blood. The PICC was my favorite addition to the treatments. They would wake me up at 4am every day and draw blood for lab work, and without the PICC they would have to stick me with a needle every time. Getting up at 4am and getting stuck with a needle isn’t very fun. In fact they were taking so much blood that at one point I accused one of the nurses of trying to clone me. Once they inserted the PICC they could take blood without having to stick me with a needle. The PICC was in my body for about a week when my body decided that this foreign object in my arm didn’t belong there and it tried fighting it the only way it knew how…by clotting blood around it. This slowed the blood return in my right arm and prevented some of it from getting back to my heart. This in turn caused my right arm to swell to about two times its normal size. The nurses were measuring it every day to make sure that it didn’t get too big. It got so big that at one point when they were measuring my arm it got so heavy that I could barely hold my arm up. In order to fix this problem the doctors gave me a drug called Lovanox. It is a blood thinner that prevents and breaks up clots. Lovanox did the trick. It was able to break up the clot in my arm and within a couple of days my arm was back to its normal size.

The other problem that I had was with my liver. I have lab work done on my blood every day to see what my platelet, white blood cell, red blood cell…well there is probably 50 different things they check for in my blood. One of the things they check for are the liver enzymes. About a week and a half into my chemotherapy my liver enzymes started climbing. My liver is still functioning normally but what elevated liver enzymes means that something is aggravating my liver and causing it to be inflamed. The doctors checked to see if it was a viral infection, but they found nothing. I am still waiting to find out what is causing my elevated liver enzymes. They think that it might be a reaction to the chemotherapy. They gave me a liver biopsy on Jul 23. The biopsy will tell the doctors what is causing my liver inflammation. When they figure out what is wrong with my liver they will be able to correct the liver enzyme levels.

Right now I’m on my first day of Chemotherapy of Course B. I am currently getting a chemical called Methotrexate. It is getting pumped into me via an IV. It takes 24 hours for all of the chemotherapy to be pumped into me. Then they will give me two other treatments called Leucovorin and Cytarabine. They are both Chemotherapies but the Cytarabine will be given to me intrathecally (that means they will give me an injection of Chemotherapy into my spine).

The room I am staying in is great. I am the only one in my room because of the fact that I will eventually have no immune system and they do not want to risk anyone else infecting me. That does not mean that I can not receive visitors. There are no visiting hours here so my family has been able to stay here with me. I have not felt lonely here at all because my family is always here to support me. The nurses were able to find an extra treadmill that was in one of the empty rooms. They moved it into my room so I am able to get exercise and keep my energy levels up. It is difficult to get on it some times but I find that when I do work out it makes me feel better a couple hours after I am done walking. I think that walking on the treadmill has also helped me recover quickly from the side effects of the chemotherapy.

I am excited about this next phase of chemotherapy. Once I am done with this phase I only have four more treatments of chemotherapy!

Thanks again for reading and I will try to keep you all up to date as much as possible.