Fasting

It's 10:30 and I have now finished my last food and drink until dinner time. Anybody who knows me well, knows that this will be a remarkable feat if I pull it off. I have an MRI of my liver at 4:30 and can't eat or drink 6 hours before! I just had a nice big breakfast and drank some water, we'll see how it goes! I'm a bit worried about the results, mostly because every result I've gotten so far has been worse than I imagined. I'm hoping the chemo has had an effect on it and it's not looking too bad though.

Last Friday I had my PFT (pulmonary function test). I've been having troubles breathing, especially when I workout, and this seems like a common side-effect of Bleomycin. I had to breathe into some fancy tubes for about a half hour, holding my breath, blowing out as hard as possible, etc. The techinician remarked that my results were very good, some of the best he had ever seen. This only frustrated me, because I realize that I have great lungs as I've lived a pretty active life, especially when compared to 80 year old cancer patients, but that they have no baseline for ME to compare it to. I wish they did one at the start of chemo so that they have something to compare it to. I'm sure my doctor is just going to say it's fine and that I'm well above average and put me back on Bleomycin. Argh!

My girlfriend's mom has been giving me all of my Neupogen shots so far. Realizing that winter is coming up, making daily drives to her house a little improbable, and that either Dawn or I have to give me my shot on Thursday in Victoria, Dawn gave me my shot last night. My mom is going to give me my shot tonight. It's kind of scary being a guinea pig for this, but Dawn did great last night and I'm sure my mom will too. I don't think I'll ever be able to give myself one though!

Ouch

I think #3 was the worst so far. I've been pretty sick the entire time since chemo. The second one went well so I was hoping I might get less sick as they went, but I guess that's not the case.

I'm starting to get over it now though and I'm excited for my trip to Victoria this weekend. I'm heading out to take pictures at the Head of the Gorge, a big rowing race. Dawn is coming out with me and I'll get to show her all around my old home.

Here goes #3!

I had my bloodwork done yesterday and chatted with the doctor a bit. My white blood cells were up to 1.6 this time, still not up into the 2-8 range, so I'm going to have to do 4 shots each time now of Neupogen. Boo! I told him about my lung issues and he's going to remove the Bleomycin this time and I have to go for a lung performance test sometime soon. I hope that goes well.

I'm about to head in for my third chemo and after this one I'll be one quarter done!

2 Down!

The second chemo didn't seem to be all that bad so far. First couple days weren't that nauseous then it got worse and was pretty bad for about 2 days. By the end of the weekend I was done feeling sick. Now I'm into the "can't sleep even though I want to sleep 20 hours" phase. Fell asleep at about 3am last night and getting up for work this morning was a painful process which didn't work too well!

My chest is painful and I'm really going to have to talk to him seriously about it next Tuesday. I tried going for a bike ride on Sunday and was in quite a bit of pain and completely out of breath after about 10 minutes. I know I'm not in racing shape anymore, but this is getting to be ridiculous!

So, looking ahead there are 10 more treatments and I think it's completely possible I might make it now. This isn't too bad! The only bad things are the tiredness and chest pains but sleeping helps both of them!

Just Made It!

Your white blood cell counts are supposed to be between 2 and 8. Last week's test put me at 0.4. My doctor said he won't do chemo if it's under 1. This week I rocked it and got 1.1! This afternoon is chemo #2 and I'm not really looking forward to it. I felt kind of sick this morning, I guess I'm just getting excited for the nausea!