No live blogging today

Well, in a perfect world, I would have had a nice recliner, a chair for my babers and systematic (if not quick) flow through treatment today. However:

- as a result of the PFT (which shows some slight diffusion issues, but nothing terrible), they had me get a Chest X-ray today which came back negative (delayed meeting the doc).

- They have disco'd the Bleo for the rest of my treatments (3 left). Took a long time to talk with the doc.

- Once I was out on the infusion floor, there were no recliners and no rooms, so I started my treatment in a normal waiting room chair.

All of this took about 6 hours and 30mins and I was not in a blogging mood. I couldn't nap either.

Regardless, it is over and I got a nap this afternoon. I also was able to watch all of the "No country for old men" movie I had recently procured as well as half of "Super Bad". It made the time go faster.

Nine down, three to go.

Turkey Town

Happy Thanksgiving to all out there. I had another decent time after treatment #8. Normal fatigue and tiredness, but no hot mouth and other stuff. Also, I felt great in time for Thanksgiving. We had my parents (who now no longer live with us) here as well as my in-laws and younger brother Ben. Food was great and we really had a good time. The kids were good for the most part and enjoyed seeing all the people in the house and all the attention they got.

Treatment #9 (start of cycle #5) is this upcoming Thursday. I haven't gotten the results of my PFT yet. This was done as a precaution to see if the Bleomycin is affecting my lungs. Either way I am no longer getting it.

Here is to everyone having a great holiday season.

Treatment #8 getting started

Alrighty,

Met with the doctor. He is going to check in on a slight cough I have with a Lung Function test and is keeping me off of the Bleomycin in the meantime. I'll get posting today as I can.

Updated:

Well I slept a lot. But the important piece of our visit was talking with my Dr. He believes that within the next 5 years or so, a negative Pet Scan around the 6th treatment mark or earlier would lead Dr's to stop after treatment #8. When he heard I had a little bit of a persistent cough, he decided to discontinue the Bleo as part of the regimen. So I am now down to AVD. Truth be told, it's the D that kicks my but, but he's staying.

If after treatment #10 I start experiencing any symptoms that would worry him, he mentioned the possibility of stopping after that. YEAH. Now I need to do some research on recurrence and if shorting the treatment increases the odds.

Feelling pretty good

So for whatever reason, I recovered much better after treatment #7. My thoughts on it:

- I felt slightly less tired (maybe the extra couple days between treatments?)
- No major mouth issues outside of taste differences since I drink only sweet tea, crystal light or Gatorade at room temp.
- Nausea under control during entire treatments (just get a little queezy anticipating treatment day).
- Bowels are good to go since I followed MJ's protocol {daily docusate calcium (kaopectate) forget docusate sodium (Colace}.
- MJ also mentioned that they are up'ing her doses because she, like all of us, are gaining weight due to the roids (decadron). They haven't done that for me, but i wonder if my weight gain isn't helping me take the treatments

Needless to say...

I drifted off and got my sleep on again. It actually makes the time go faster so I don't mind at all. There was a lot of chatty people getting juiced up in there tho, so it wasn't as easy to stay asleep. My dad took me to my treatment, he had never been before. He has had a lot of people in his family die from various cancers, mostly smoking related ones, but he is the 13th of 16 kids, so he has seen his share. I am sure he has seen a infusion treatment center before, but it still is depressing. I try to tell him that Hodgkin's isn't believed to genetic, due to it's world wide indiscriminate diagnosis, but I still think that he believes his genetics has something to do with it. I'll keep trying to convince him otherwise.

Alrighty, 7 down 5 to go.

Treatment #7 live blogging

8:25am ET: Ok, so I will attempt to blog live again, even though I usually get tired and nap about 2 hours into it :)

Today's treatment was pushed back due to a quick little trip I had up to Boston with the wife. We'll see if I can do the rest without any delays. They are about to get my #'s on my blood at this time and we'll see where we are. With an extra two days in hand, I would assume that they are better then normal.

9:00am ET: As expected my WBC's are around 2700. About 600 higher then normal, but I had an extra 2 days, so... They are giving me the meds now prior to the good stuff (bad stuff).

10amET The red stuff is dripping and i don't like looking at it anymore. RRRRRR

11am ET Nappy time :)