Hey everybody!
The last 2 weeks have been fairly uneventful. I had been off of chemo (till Friday) because of the low blood counts for the last two weeks and that may be why. Strangely, I still had a lot of down days/moments and that was both surprising and depressing. The nurses explained to me that the chemo stays in the system for weeks, so it isn’t like I can expect a plain, predictable improvement in the way I feel. They said once I finally stop, it can take “months” to actually feel normal again…. #$&*!…OK, so expectations get rearranged again… All that said, I did start Chemo back up again on Friday. I will be on a Friday on, Friday off regimen moving forward and then will do that until Thanksgiving, after which I will do full scans again to see where we are at with this.
We did go for a 2nd opinion that was set up by my doctor, to The UM Sylvester Cancer Canter at Jackson. We met with Dr. Gomez, there, and the visit was very successful. He basically completely validated my Oncology Team’s approach and he said that he doesn’t impress easy, but was VERY impressed with what Dr. Lozada had been doing for me. They will now collaborate with each other in the future and that makes my team that much stronger. There may also be the opportunity for me to join a vaccine trial but that pursuit is a ways off…
The bad news here is this was the first chemo treatment that hit me that same night. Fridays were usually a good night. This time I was exhausted Friday night and a zombie. The weekend was a better story and I guess that is a praise, because usually they are worse. I managed the nausea well and kept my appetite and eating up with small meals every 2 hours. I did watch a LOT of television/movies/etc and feel like a lazy porridge-head, but at least I am not throwing up… I gotta tell you the lack of consistency in how I feel with the treatments is driving me crazy.
The good news here is I only have (5) more chemo sessions until the scans. SO… I am actually over half done with the treatment.
This week should also sort out the future work situation I mentioned two blogs ago for my team and me. Meaning, we should finally hear where everybody will shake out position-wise and get closure on what our jobs will be as of January 1. Maybe then everyone can focus on the still chaotic current work load. I still need your all’s prayers about this.
This will be all for now. I will sign off asking for God’s blessing to be upon you all.
Love, In Christ,
Eric
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Sunday, September 9, 2007
In the hospital all week... 9/9/07
Hey all:
A quick update on things… Things have been a bit on the tough side this last week. I had some issues with limping on my right side on Wednesday, which when I called my Doctor, she said to get to the hospital to check out my back. That led to an MRI on my favorite machine (I did great this time. I think I am finally just learning to deal with it).
Unfortunately, my back had swelled up again and I need to go back on the Decadron steroid. (Not good news). The other down side is that while they were checking me for that, they tested my blood counts and found that they were so low across the board, that I needed to be hospitalized until they could be brought back up.
SO… I was actually in the hospital all week: Wednesday through today, Sunday afternoon. In addition to sitting around working (fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, the rooms all have Wi-Fi), they gave me shots, IV meds, and platelets and blood units, all trying to raise my counts. It was agonizing waiting for the lab results each day, hoping that they would get to the point that I could go home. Each day they bumped up, but not enough… Clearly, this last round of chemo really kicked my butt…
That and I think I overdid it at work the last two weeks. Especially Tuesday… I almost killed myself going down to one of the high-rise jobsites for a meeting. In full fall harness, I walked long distances, up stairs and ramps in 93 deg. heat. I completely soaked through my dress shirt in sweat. It was seriously stupid of me, but I had felt obligated to go. I won’t be doing anymore jobsite visits for a while, I can tell you that much. Obligation or not.
Anyway, I am home now and looking forward to getting a good night sleep in my own bed. I do have to go back and do blood work on Tuesday to make sure I am still fit to be in the general public.
Please pray that my blood counts stay up. I would also like to encourage you all to please go donate blood and platelets. When I donated, I never really thought much about who used that blood, guessing it was typically Emergency situations. But I clearly needed them to avoid any possible infection my body couldn’t then fight off. Or maybe I can just see it as they got me home to my family quicker? Saving lives in ER’s, or boosting cancer patients immune systems, or just getting people home quicker… All good reasons to donate.
Love, in Christ,
Eric
A quick update on things… Things have been a bit on the tough side this last week. I had some issues with limping on my right side on Wednesday, which when I called my Doctor, she said to get to the hospital to check out my back. That led to an MRI on my favorite machine (I did great this time. I think I am finally just learning to deal with it).
Unfortunately, my back had swelled up again and I need to go back on the Decadron steroid. (Not good news). The other down side is that while they were checking me for that, they tested my blood counts and found that they were so low across the board, that I needed to be hospitalized until they could be brought back up.
SO… I was actually in the hospital all week: Wednesday through today, Sunday afternoon. In addition to sitting around working (fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, the rooms all have Wi-Fi), they gave me shots, IV meds, and platelets and blood units, all trying to raise my counts. It was agonizing waiting for the lab results each day, hoping that they would get to the point that I could go home. Each day they bumped up, but not enough… Clearly, this last round of chemo really kicked my butt…
That and I think I overdid it at work the last two weeks. Especially Tuesday… I almost killed myself going down to one of the high-rise jobsites for a meeting. In full fall harness, I walked long distances, up stairs and ramps in 93 deg. heat. I completely soaked through my dress shirt in sweat. It was seriously stupid of me, but I had felt obligated to go. I won’t be doing anymore jobsite visits for a while, I can tell you that much. Obligation or not.
Anyway, I am home now and looking forward to getting a good night sleep in my own bed. I do have to go back and do blood work on Tuesday to make sure I am still fit to be in the general public.
Please pray that my blood counts stay up. I would also like to encourage you all to please go donate blood and platelets. When I donated, I never really thought much about who used that blood, guessing it was typically Emergency situations. But I clearly needed them to avoid any possible infection my body couldn’t then fight off. Or maybe I can just see it as they got me home to my family quicker? Saving lives in ER’s, or boosting cancer patients immune systems, or just getting people home quicker… All good reasons to donate.
Love, in Christ,
Eric
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Round 3: New Chemo Regimen - 9/2/07
Round 3: New Chemo Regimen
Hello everybody! I guess I lied again about blogging more frequently and I apologize. I will stop making promises for more frequent blogs so as to not keep having to apologize…
Things have been going really well since my last blog. Last week was both the end of Radiation treatment and a Chemo “bye week”. The prognosis of a good week last week was definitely expected and I can say that it was probably my strongest week since I started treatment. I basically really poured myself into work. I went into the Miami office and the Miami International Airport Office every day and basically worked very full days. There were client meetings, etc… I was always totally wiped out by the time I got home at night and ended up only able to sit in the recliner until bedtime, but felt that I had made some nice milestones. Honestly, I probably over did it, but I am still fully engaged at work and felt I needed to be able to do that since I have been working so remotely during the entire time I have been doing the radiation treatments.
Things are definitely still very hectic at work and I will ask you all to pray that God will help things settle down there. My team is really up to their eyeballs with the challenges we are facing each day, and we seriously have hit a patch of Murphy’s Law with regard to work issues that I have never seen before. It has me truly incredulous. And if it weren’t affecting the bottom line and my team’s morale so much, it would be almost laughable how almost everything that can go wrong has gone wrong. Not helping this is that everybody is also fighting hard not to be distracted by a major reorganization my company is going through right now. While we are going to be operating under our current structure though the rest of the year, this has many people not exactly knowing what their new roles or jobs may be as of January 1st. It is a serious stressor to all of us…
That aside, I can say that my company, my boss, former boss, and my team have been fantastic in their support of me during this time. They tell me not to even worry about work until I get through this treatment, but I can’t do that. That’s not how I’m wired… Fortunately, I can still work full time. I am not sure what I would do if I couldn’t. It would drive me crazy to just lay around.
But I definitely could use God’s intervention for some wins for my team!
As I had told you, Radiation treatment is done and so I don’t have that to deal with. This is seriously one of my happiest things to be able to say. It was a real pain in the you-know-what. Let me actually describe it to you…
I had to be at the hospital EVERY day, Monday through Friday, with a standing appointment that was “scheduled” for 9:30am. But one problem is the machine I was assigned to, I called her “Ole Bessie” was 16 years old and broke down a lot. There was always a 30-45 minute extra wait. More than a few times, they would come in at the end of a long delay and ask us all to come back in the afternoon. There were three times the machine broke down while I was in the middle of actually getting treatment… But I digress…
Here’s the base routine: I drive over there, park, walk in, sign in, and go directly to this one waiting room, where I wait with a bunch of very, very nice people who are also waiting for treatment. The waiting/changing room is usually about 69 deg. and everyone is huddled in gowns and blankets. You wait to until your name is called over the intercom, then you walk out to the “Accelerator Door” and walk down this semi-maze hallway into a room that is approximately 40’ x 40’, with this massive machine sticking out of one wall. Two very sweet ladies, Camile and Senilla, radiation techs, lay me face down on the table that sticks out of the wall under the big machine. They shift me around, pull me, push me, rotate me, etc… until my hips, legs, whatever are lined up with the laser guides just so, then tell me not to move. They vacate and then the machine starts to hum and move and rotate around me, every so often emitting an annoying buzz that indicates that it is zapping me with radiation. 30 minutes later, after my feet are numb and I am dying to itch my nose, the techs come back in and help me off the table.
One cool thing they did do was let me bring in any CD I wanted to listen to, but it was always hard to really enjoy it, given the intermittent buzzing which was louder than the music. But still, it was nice though to have that option. I always brought in praise music and used the time to pray. I started by praying to God to simply “Kill this cancer” every time the buzzer was buzzing, almost as a mantra. But after awhile, I tried to tune out the buzzer and just pray.
Last Friday marked the start Round 3 of my Chemo regimen… I can tell you that I am a little nervous about it. Just in how I am going to respond this week. Now that we are not doing the radiation anymore, we are upping the Chemo doses again, adding back the Gemzar drug to the mix with the Carboplatin and Taxol. Friday, my chemo day was a good one. They always are.
I also had the company of my best college friend, Greg Kroencke, who flew in late Friday night to spend some time with me. He hung with me all Saturday then flew out first thing Sunday morning, just to make a brief visit to me. It was so great to see him. We had a great time catching up and even got the special treat of watching the Illini do everything BUT win their first football game of the year (which was miraculously televised on ESPN2 since Illini Football is RARELY televised because they have been a terrible team for the last 6 years). We ran errands in the middle of the day and I was feeling really good until the evening. I got this amazing headache and lost my appetite for the first time in weeks. I couldn’t eat dinner and felt really poorly. I can honestly say it was my worst Saturday night since maybe the first Chemo weekend and a disappointing end of my time with Greg.
This morning, Sunday morning, Amy and I went to church and I have been feeling very uneven today. This is somewhat expected, though… Sundays have traditionally been my toughest day.
So… I will leave off here. Thanks again for the cards and e-mails.
Love, In Christ,
Eric
Hello everybody! I guess I lied again about blogging more frequently and I apologize. I will stop making promises for more frequent blogs so as to not keep having to apologize…
Things have been going really well since my last blog. Last week was both the end of Radiation treatment and a Chemo “bye week”. The prognosis of a good week last week was definitely expected and I can say that it was probably my strongest week since I started treatment. I basically really poured myself into work. I went into the Miami office and the Miami International Airport Office every day and basically worked very full days. There were client meetings, etc… I was always totally wiped out by the time I got home at night and ended up only able to sit in the recliner until bedtime, but felt that I had made some nice milestones. Honestly, I probably over did it, but I am still fully engaged at work and felt I needed to be able to do that since I have been working so remotely during the entire time I have been doing the radiation treatments.
Things are definitely still very hectic at work and I will ask you all to pray that God will help things settle down there. My team is really up to their eyeballs with the challenges we are facing each day, and we seriously have hit a patch of Murphy’s Law with regard to work issues that I have never seen before. It has me truly incredulous. And if it weren’t affecting the bottom line and my team’s morale so much, it would be almost laughable how almost everything that can go wrong has gone wrong. Not helping this is that everybody is also fighting hard not to be distracted by a major reorganization my company is going through right now. While we are going to be operating under our current structure though the rest of the year, this has many people not exactly knowing what their new roles or jobs may be as of January 1st. It is a serious stressor to all of us…
That aside, I can say that my company, my boss, former boss, and my team have been fantastic in their support of me during this time. They tell me not to even worry about work until I get through this treatment, but I can’t do that. That’s not how I’m wired… Fortunately, I can still work full time. I am not sure what I would do if I couldn’t. It would drive me crazy to just lay around.
But I definitely could use God’s intervention for some wins for my team!
As I had told you, Radiation treatment is done and so I don’t have that to deal with. This is seriously one of my happiest things to be able to say. It was a real pain in the you-know-what. Let me actually describe it to you…
I had to be at the hospital EVERY day, Monday through Friday, with a standing appointment that was “scheduled” for 9:30am. But one problem is the machine I was assigned to, I called her “Ole Bessie” was 16 years old and broke down a lot. There was always a 30-45 minute extra wait. More than a few times, they would come in at the end of a long delay and ask us all to come back in the afternoon. There were three times the machine broke down while I was in the middle of actually getting treatment… But I digress…
Here’s the base routine: I drive over there, park, walk in, sign in, and go directly to this one waiting room, where I wait with a bunch of very, very nice people who are also waiting for treatment. The waiting/changing room is usually about 69 deg. and everyone is huddled in gowns and blankets. You wait to until your name is called over the intercom, then you walk out to the “Accelerator Door” and walk down this semi-maze hallway into a room that is approximately 40’ x 40’, with this massive machine sticking out of one wall. Two very sweet ladies, Camile and Senilla, radiation techs, lay me face down on the table that sticks out of the wall under the big machine. They shift me around, pull me, push me, rotate me, etc… until my hips, legs, whatever are lined up with the laser guides just so, then tell me not to move. They vacate and then the machine starts to hum and move and rotate around me, every so often emitting an annoying buzz that indicates that it is zapping me with radiation. 30 minutes later, after my feet are numb and I am dying to itch my nose, the techs come back in and help me off the table.
One cool thing they did do was let me bring in any CD I wanted to listen to, but it was always hard to really enjoy it, given the intermittent buzzing which was louder than the music. But still, it was nice though to have that option. I always brought in praise music and used the time to pray. I started by praying to God to simply “Kill this cancer” every time the buzzer was buzzing, almost as a mantra. But after awhile, I tried to tune out the buzzer and just pray.
Last Friday marked the start Round 3 of my Chemo regimen… I can tell you that I am a little nervous about it. Just in how I am going to respond this week. Now that we are not doing the radiation anymore, we are upping the Chemo doses again, adding back the Gemzar drug to the mix with the Carboplatin and Taxol. Friday, my chemo day was a good one. They always are.
I also had the company of my best college friend, Greg Kroencke, who flew in late Friday night to spend some time with me. He hung with me all Saturday then flew out first thing Sunday morning, just to make a brief visit to me. It was so great to see him. We had a great time catching up and even got the special treat of watching the Illini do everything BUT win their first football game of the year (which was miraculously televised on ESPN2 since Illini Football is RARELY televised because they have been a terrible team for the last 6 years). We ran errands in the middle of the day and I was feeling really good until the evening. I got this amazing headache and lost my appetite for the first time in weeks. I couldn’t eat dinner and felt really poorly. I can honestly say it was my worst Saturday night since maybe the first Chemo weekend and a disappointing end of my time with Greg.
This morning, Sunday morning, Amy and I went to church and I have been feeling very uneven today. This is somewhat expected, though… Sundays have traditionally been my toughest day.
So… I will leave off here. Thanks again for the cards and e-mails.
Love, In Christ,
Eric
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