Good News Plus More Plan Changes… 8/4/07

Good News Plus More Plan Changes… 8/4/07

Hello! Sorry for the downbeat/mood of my last blog. This one will not be near so glum. Promise. I actually am feeling pretty good right now so I felt this would be a good time to catch you all up.

This week marked my 1st full week of radiation therapy at my L3 site. I feel it must be considered successful. My pain has greatly diminished and I am really only left with the great inconvenience of wearing a full chest brace to try to support/isolate that L3, to be worn all the time when I am not sleeping. The doctors think I may need to wear this for a pretty long time, not knowing ho truly unstable the L3 is. I am hoping we’ll have a plan in the next 4 weeks on whether I need the Kyphoplasty/Arcuplasty treatment to repair the L3, with surgical cement. We’ll just have to wait on that.

The only real side effect I have been fighting this week that may be new and/or increased is substantial fatigue. I get weak fast. I definitely think it is a combined factor of both the Chemo and the Radiation (most people do not do both at the same time).

Throw in the MISERABLE weekend stay at Holy Cross and that I am still not sleeping soundly at night and most of this is explainable… The good news is that I think I am finally pulling through on the rest front. I have caught a few naps this week and feel less fatigued today since I have since all of last week. I plan to take this weekend to really gain on my rest and feel like I can come close to square one and really try to get to an understanding of my “baseline” feelings.

And this has been my main frustration so far. All of this is new. All of this is changing, literally weekly, that I have yet be able to find a “rhythm”. And with all of the treatment changes we are still talking about, it may be a few more weeks before I get a stable routine going. Now, enough about that. Here’s the latest:

PLAN CHANGES
I had Chemotherapy again yesterday. My new cycle will be (3) straight Friday’s, then a “bye week”. But the chemo will be a fractionated dose of just the Taxol and Carboplatin (Gemzar is too sensitive to radiation, so we had to cut that out completely). This chemo plan is really just to make sure we can keep some momentum up on that front as I switch to more of a radiation therapy plan. Plus I am young and they think I can take this more aggressive plan.

I will keep up with the Monday through Friday radiation of the site at L3, PLUS I will start an additional, lager field regimen of Radiation Therapy for my hips, and sacrum on Monday. This too, will be every weekday and we expect this to go for another 3-4weeks. This ties into the Chemo cycle, and so I will guess we will be changing that plan again then, too…

Dr. Lozada ordered a CT Scan on Thursday wanting to see what my lung tumor has been doing with the chemo. We were a little tentative about what we would find, as the first scan was from 2+ weeks before treatment started, so the growth was still theoretically blooming and we feared that the new scan might come back showing an increase.

But, GOOD NEWS!!! The scan actually shows a slight decrease in size after only one cycle. Praise God! A small victory for sure, but a victory none-the-less.

With that news above, and now that we have switched to a radiation heavy plan, Dr. Lozada is asking the Radiation Oncologist, Dr. Medina, to look to radiate the lung to really go aggressively after this stuff. Dr. Medina is slightly tentative because this would be (3) very large fields of radiation all going on at the same time, but again, I am young and strong and Dr. Lozada seems encouraged. I’ll know more on that next week…

Oh yeah, I am completely bald now. I have also lost a bunch of weight (20 lbs+), eating healthier than I have in my entire life tehse last 4 weeks. When you don’t eat a bunch of crap, it is actually a major struggle to get 2000 calories a day… Funny, I don’t miss any of it.

I will get pictures up soon so you call can see my new “look”. I still feel like I am looking at a stranger in the mirror, but some people have been nice enough to say that I look handsome. I am also not getting my beard growth back either. I shaved the other week and with 5 days growth since, I still only look like a 13 year old kid trying to look like a Latino gang banger…

Still constipated. Think about that a lot. Really hate that. Bowels should not be a part of your moment-to-moment consciousness. I am trying to turn it over to God (add your own “moving in mysterious ways” jokes, here).

Anyway, I will sign off. Thanks so much for you continued e-mails and prayers. I love you all.

Eric