ibid: what does that mean anyway?

I'm about where I was yesterday. 

Because of the glimepiride I'm able to keep my blood sugars reasonable while I've been taking the prednisone.  Only one more prednisone stint to go thank goodness. 

Now my major symptom is heart burn. All those little cells that line my gut have been R-CHOP'd to death.  They don't protect me from my own stomach acid anymore. All good things burn even the tomato basil soup that tasted so good.

My sinuses are a bit of a problem too, it seems they have gotten sensitive and if I bend over to pick something up the blood rushing to my head and increased blood pressure makes me get a headache.

But altogether I think these are small problems compared to what I think others have to suffer through while on chemotherapy.  My oncologist said there was no science to how the symptoms appear after I mentioned that mine had changed where they showed up in the cycle. 

The whole idea of chemotherapy is that it kills the cancer before it gets you. So naturally there is a certain down side to taking this course of action.  I would imagine that for some people, that course of action fails.

I have placed myself, with help and encouragement, on one side of a bet that I will survive the chemotherapy.  Not everybody does.  So far everything implies that I will. 

Lucky me.

It was an OK day, not much to write about

Tomorrow is my last day of prednisone for this cycle, and that will help with things.  At least sleep.

I'm not experiencing very much nausea, mostly just occasional heartburn.  So I'm doing pretty good. 

I managed to get three blocks in my walk today, an improvement over the last couple of days and even better than last week. 

Things will look up until they look down again.

I got little more than a couple of hours of sleep last night because the prednisone kept me awake - I would drift in and out of sleep and look at the clock.  I did take a sleeping pill and some pain medication.  Eventually I took a muscle relaxant during the night because of pain in the middle of my back.  I wonder if it was the 
L4 compression fracture acting  up? 

The muscle relaxant helped with the Muscle spasms, so I was back to drifting in and out of sleep.

it is friday I'm feeling a little better

I'm doing much better today than yesterday - I even managed to walk two blocks.

So far no diarrhea, minimal constipation probably more sinus problems than usual but today is better in that regard than yesterday.  I have no clue as to why my body is responding so well to this. 

Even my blood sugars seem OK. 

But it's Friday, I'm doing better than I expected and I'm trundling along to my last infusion only weeks away.   And after that to a clinical trial which will involve either an oral medication or a less complete infusion.


A part of me wants to get this over with no matter how uncomfortable it makes me. 

Another day after and I don't care...

The only good thing I can say is that I have three weeks to recover before the next and last chemotherapy treatment.  I seem to be having more side effects than normal, although I guess it's to be expected considering that the treatments are cumulative and I'm on the accumulated end.

In the middle of earlier cycles I walked up to five or six blocks - I was feeling stronger after a week of being infused, but this time I don't think so.  I got a block today - the day before the infusion I got two blocks.

I'm getting weaker.

I know that I will start to feel better, day by day and then I'll have my last infusion and I will recover and go back to work.  But I think it is a long hard slog.

What is a comfortable way?

What is a comfortable way to say yuck!??

Well, my fifth infusion is done and I feel OK.  I'm not nauseated very much so I guess I'm OK.

But after each of these things I have an uncomfortable feeling something like I've had too much to drink.

Without the pleasant aspects of being drunk.


Well, I'm not drunk and I suppose that R-CHOP chemotherapy is healthy in the sense that the cancer is really going away.  I am very lucky that I can feel this way.  Uncomfortable.


Three more weeks and I will have my last.

"Twice more into the breach!"

Was that a misquote from Henry the fifth?

Tomorrow is another infusion, and I am beginning to notice that symptoms that I used to experience only early in the infusion cycle are hanging around for later.

I wonder how I'll feel after six of them.

But better to be alive and on my way to a longer life even if I have to go through this.  What's a little diarrhea and intestinal discomfort? 

The headaches aren't as bad as the headaches I used to have.  I am a little weak.

I'm happy that I don't have to go through the spinal infusions anymore.

So I'm all psychologically ready for the next to the last infusion tomorrow. Only one more after that!

Yes, at last Saturday...

It is a bright and beautiful day today, and I walked but only a couple of blocks.  My poor body feels like it is suffering from all of my prior infusions.  Not as bad as the first six days after one of them but a bit of constipation followed by diarrhea which thank goodness seems to be over.

With only two more infusions to go I feel I am crawling towards the finish line of a marathon.

It's nice that the weather has warmed up and we can open the windows. So for the time that I can't get out I can breathe good air. It is still chilly at night, but it gets up into the 60's and 70's during the day. 

The Bradford Pear trees are blooming. We have a couple of flowers sprouting under one of the bushes next to the driveway.  Spring is earlier than I expected. 

here we are again and it is almost Friday

I am doing reasonably well, but Fess Parker (Davy Crockett) died today which made me think of how comfortable a coon skin cap would be right now.  

In my size, not the size of the one I had as a child.

Reminds me of all the summers our family spent at a small tar paper shack on a very back road in farming country seven miles from the nearest small town.  Not a care in the world and healthy.

I will spare you a list of my discomforts, but suffice it to say that this time they are intestinal in nature.

There was a meal of  some green chilies mixed in with some pasta Alfredo a day or so ago, and it will be going out the other end soon.

I do not have happy thoughts about that.

My walk was not that long today, and I think I want to go to bed early tonight.  Maybe I should sleep late tomorrow.

at some point it will only be a day away

I'm counting down the days to my next infusion a week from tomorrow.   I want it, infusion #5; followed by another struggle to overcome the peculiar sensations and weaknesses that it entails.

At least I haven't puked  yet.

Did that just after I lost my right tonsil to biopsy surgery last December by taking a helpful amount of roxicet after breakfast one day.  Pain, pain, go away and then I got sick.

So, roxicet is worse than chemo?

But I was counting down to #5 so I can get on to #6.  And get the port taken out.

And get on with recovery.  My life.

tinkering with a bit of code and laughing

There is a certain comfort with work:  the programs haven't changed through all this madness that has been my lot over the past eight to ten months or so.  I had an epiphany today found the bug I was looking for and tested it all in the space of 30 minutes or so.

Work can be a very comfortable distraction, but today I had a different one: I went for a walk as usual but ended up walking a block further than before.  

Some construction had been going on in the roadway beyond the distance I usually walked but the trucks and equipment have vanished and now I can walk much further.

I only have to go.

I felt much stronger today and it is a good feeling.  Considering the "death warmed over" feeling that I had several days I go it is much of an improvement.

I am getting into the better part of this cycle and in a couple of weeks it will be time to be infused again.

But I only have two of those to go.  Whoopee!

a moment to reflect on this special year

It has been a strange and special year:  it started out with a mild but persistent headache that simply got worse.


By the time I was  told that I had cancer I wasn't exactly mentally functional:   I had increasingly worse headaches and my neck was in pain;  I lived in fear of violent neck spasms.


The pain had a deadening effect on me and when I started to think I might die I considered that idea calmly.   My world darkened and being the fatalist that I am I just accepted that.  Death seemed very reasonable, likely and not necessarily unpleasant considering that I was in episodic pain.  

There have been perhaps a handful of people that when they have died I have known about it through some discomforting dream.   And it occurred to me that there were people who loved me and they might have some very bad dreams when I died.

I had a responsibility to them and I remember thinking to myself that I wanted to pull back from the abyss and live.

Now all my litte tumors seem to be gone and in another couple of months I will be free of chemotherapy treatments and can have my port removed.

I can say that life looks very good right now.

Bit of a relapse, but to be expected

Not feeling quite so good as yesterday, but still better than the usual several days of diarrhea.

A little more nausea and upset stomach.  Sometimes when I feel this way I think it's because of something I ate; in this case ice cream.  Black cherry ice cream. Delicious black cherry ice cream.

Why don't I just blame the prednisone.

I went out for a  brief walk, but didn't get very far.  Just tired. My sinuses are giving me a headache so I think it is time for a nap.

Feeling Surprisingly well

It's Friday (thank Goodness) and my work is done.  I've been feeling pretty well with only minimal nausea and not a lot of heartburn.

I went for a walk about noon and walked two short blocks to Highview.  I didn't feel like straining myself so I came home but it was nice to get out on a crisp sunny day.

I got tired by 2:30 and waited an hour to actually quit work. 

Normally I don't feel this good this soon after infusion.  Have I been dong something right, or am I just getting better?

An uneventufl day after the fourth infusion

It is one day past number four and my mid-back pain is back.  This has come back from time to time during these infusions and I haven't given it a lot of thought; but my back was strained after the lumbar puncture, not so much from the needle but from lying on a hard table and having to wait to get up.  

Thank God that will be over.  I just have to find the  requisite drug to halt those nasty little muscle spasms tonight.  Not that I don't have leftovers from other painful experiences.

Otherwise I'm doing very well for the first day after an infusion.  I haven't had the hideous excursions into the various forms of diarrhea that I had formerly experienced. I may be somewhat constipated although I don't know why. 

If I wait a day I might get the runs.

I've had a little nausea (for which I have Zophran) and some heartburn and a tendency to overeat from the prednisone.

Otherwise I feel pretty good.

Fourth Lumbar Puncture

Today was my fourth infusion which was pretty much uneventful.

It was also the last spinal infusion. Is the proper word: hallelujah?

The path report came back and it seems that the cancer has been greatly reduced.  My oncologist says it is good news which is a second reason to celebrate. The upshot of the report is that I am in good enough condition to have only six infusions instead of eight; so I now know two are remaining.


I also have the path report and it appears to my untrained eye to be good news although written in Greek and Latin.   Being a lover of ancient history, that appeals to me.

I puzzle out the cognates and Google them one by one.

One of my lumbar bones has a fracture that is new.  While new reason for lower back pain,  it doesn't look like it should affect any nerves.

Where would the cast for that go?


When I arrived at the oncologists floor and the nurse took my blood pressure it was 122/67 which is better than it has been in a while.

What magic pill did I take to get that?

What a Ride: PET/CT Scanned!

I used to watch commercials of people riding a narrow and lightly padded rail into the center hole of huge and long doughnut shaped diagnostic machines wondering what that would be like.


Well, for the second time I was privy to the secrets written on the inner surface of those long and white tubes.  There's a funky little red light up there and something behind a clear plastic shield that rotates at swift guillotine like speeds.  I remember thinking that if that shield wasn't there someone would be temped to stick they're fingers into the path of that blade.  Whoops!

This was the first time I slid in feet first, and I remembered commenting to the tech, a young dark haired woman who's accent gave her away as a native North Carolinian, that I felt less claustrophobic going in that way. 

My arms were up over my head and I was wrapped up in a blanket and padding with my trousers down around my knees so that the metal part of my jeans would not interfere with the scan.  I slid in and out of the machine, like some Popsicle stick sliding into and out of some whale sized toothless mouth.   It would stop.  Start.  Find a new position.  Move again.

My shoulder muscles started to ache, and my post nasal drip tickled the back of my throat until my eyes watered.  And I coughed.  All the while trying to be still.

After we were finished, my britches pulled up and about to go to the CT part of that another young woman came up to us (the tech was there) and told us that the CT scan had been canceled because it was not necessary.  They had called the scheduling doctor to confirm the appointment.

The Tech explained that the PET scan was also a CT scanner;  although without contrast.  But enough to do that job.

When you think about it, they already know where the tumors are.  Or were.

I knew what I was missing - an hour of drinking bitter and unnatural tasting contrast and then have more put in through my vein.  Relief is not the word.  It isn't strong enough.

Remembering that I had to wake up early to take my thyroid pill and not drink anything after 6:30 this morning.  No breakfast, no metformin. No water. They tested my  blood sugar and it was 147.  Waited more than an hour after after the injection of the radioactive dye until I was plugged into the doughnut.

Thank God that's over.  I hope I never go for that ride again.