It’s only been a week since my last post but a busy week it
was. I thought several times about
posting during the week but I just wasn’t up to it physically.
Radiation started last Monday and as an everyday event I
immediately felt like I was on a runaway train since it kind of took over as a
mid-day event that had to happen.
Radiation itself hasn’t been bad but the pain and mobility issues that I
am having in my back had become somewhat extreme. Advil definitely wasn’t cutting it anymore
and Dr. Fein wrote me an Rx for Percocet.
At my request the dosage was kept low and it has definitely done the job
for me. Especially with regard to helping
me get a decent night of sleep. A couple
of potential scenarios for when I might start feeling some pain relief from the
radiation had been described to me and as always Amy and I just adopted our
usual one day at a time outlook. But with
4 out of 10 treatments under my belt I started to feel a slight bit of relief
yesterday when I woke up. Let’s hope
that with 6 more to go it progresses to complete pain and mobility relief and
that the relief is long-lasting.
Lasting relief would be great because this Tuesday is when
we start the new chemo protocol. I’ll be
having chemo in the morning followed by radiation shortly thereafter. As Steve Alexander would say, “Woof!!”. Chemo will consist of VP-16 (aka Etoposide)
and carboplatin for 3 straight days (carboplatin will not be given on the 3rd
day) and this time around we’ll also be using neulasta on the 4th
day to try and keep my white blood cell count above hospital visit levels. This will all happen on a 3-week cycle so I’ll
have chemo the first week and then there will be 2 weeks to work on recovery.
Remember too that the octreotide scan, another 3-day
adventure, will be on July 23-25 at Princeton Radiology. Since I haven’t had one of those yet I’m not
entirely sure of what we might learn from this scan. Of course I know what I’ve read about it but,
as always, it’s one day at a time and right now I’m focused on the challenge of
this coming week.
What followed my mid-June email plea on behalf of myself and
the Mintz’s Mentschen team has been tremendous.
I know that I’ve said this before but you’ll have to bear with me being
a bit repetitive about it as I am just overwhelmed by it all. Love and support from all corners of my life
as well as financial support that has my LiveSTRONG fundraising up to
$5,160. Mintz’s Mentschen is up to $16,743
and stands firmly in 4th place in the overall team fundraising
standings. We’re pushing for a top 3
finish so if you can consider a donation please do it as soon as possible. The August 18-19 event is getting closer and
closer! My fundraising/recruiting webpage can be accessed by clicking here.
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