Cycle One - Day 2

Late last night I called Russ and asked him about doing the LiveStrong Challenge in October in Austin, TX. He said he was in. It seemed appropriate that I sign up for today and was able to do so before midnight. I am excited about doing it this coming year because Chris and I did it last year in Philly and we had a blast even though we were only together for about 14 hours as Tree made the trip down just for the day to do it. Anyway, Russ and I are fired up to do a 45-mile ride and hope that we can get Chris and a few other people to go down with us and raise a few dollars for what I think is a great cause and have a great time and maybe meet Lance.

I went to sleep to episodes of The Family Guy from the first season. Man, that show is funny!

I started to get a headache around 2am and asked if I could get something for the pain and they gave me oxycodone. I fell back asleep and ended up getting up at 4am or so. The headache persisted into the morning and I ended up taking a Tylenol at 5am. Around the same time, they drew some blood from the Gorshong catheter that they installed last Wednesday. Drawing blood is something that they do on a daily basis.

If you notice on the title of my sections, I am titling them the Cycle number and the day of the cycle. This time around, I am going through four cycles of Chemotherapy. Each cycle consists of five days. There are three drugs that I will be receiving in this regimen -- Paclitaxel, Ifosfamide and Cisplatin. The drugs that I received back in 1999 when I was originally diagnosed were Etopiside, Bleomycin and Cisplatin. On Day 1 of this cycle I receive one drug (Paclitaxel) infused over 24 hours. (which because of the beeping last night ended up being 27 hours - we are hoping to make some time up over the next couple days) On Days two through five, I receive Ifosfamide and Cisplatin infused over a shorter period.

This is my third occurance of this disease and of course the age old question is why. If I knew that, I would be universally admired and probably set for life, at least life without the threat of cancer.

The first time you learn that you have the disease it is without a doubt a life changing event. You appreciate people and things in life alot more and you take nothing for granted. Having it a third time definitely makes you think a lot more about what might be causing this to happen to me. What might I be doing in my life that keeps this disease coming back. Am I eating too much bad food? Should I seriously consider a macrobiotic diet, eastern medicine and other alternative forms of treatment on a more consistant basis from here on out? I consider myself a fairly healthy individual who doesn't smoke and is very careful about what enters my body, but I wonder if there is something else that I need to think about.

The good news is that this reoccurance is the same type of cancer that I had previously and that this type of cancer is highly treatable and highly curable. As a matter of fact, the doctor's told me when I was originally diagnosed that if you had to pick any type of cancer to get, testicular is one of the better ones.

Katie left thie morning around 6:15 to head back to Boulder and go to work for the morning and part of the afternoon. She is planning on making it back here this afternoon.

I decided to order up breakfast this morning in hopes that I could keep it down. I ordered some scrambled eggs, bacon, saugage, potatoes, a blueberry muffin and a cranberry juice. I was pleasantly surprised that I was hungry enough to eat everything!

This morning has been fairly quiet. Just watching a little of the Today Show and surfing the net.

The nurse came in this morning around 10am and let me know that they are going to increase the dosage so that the Paclitaxel can finish infusing and they can administer the other two drugs today.

Dr. Glode, my urologist, stopped in around 10:40am to check in and see how I was doing. One thing that we talked about was the likelyhood of another surgery. He believes that doing another surgery is for sure. The surgery is likely to be what it was in 2002 where they cut you open from your sternum all they way down to below your belly button. That is by no means a small surgery. Actually, it is quite the opposite.

About 15 minutes after Dr. Glode left, a team of four doctors came in lead by Dr. Seligman to check to make sure that everything was going fine. I let them know that I don't have any nausea as of yet. They also let me know that the chemo today is going to take a little longer than expected. About 4 to 6 hours longer. Which means I will probably be here a little later on Friday.

I ordered lunch again today. I ordered a chicken salad sandwich, some baked potato chips, chocolate cake, and a coke. I am still surprised that I am able to want to order this much food. I guess maybe chemo really has changed a lot in the last ten years.

One of our good friends, Paige stopped by this afternoon around 2:00pm and hung out for a couple of hours. We just sat in the solarium with the really great view of Denver and talked for awhile. She brought a few little gift baskets for us and a cute little Christmas Tree which we will totally enjoy this week and the week of Christmas. One of our favorite trinkets was the "Grow your own Pirate". He is sitting in water in a Gatorade bottle beside my bed.

Go to your home pirate...

Talked with Social worker at around 5:00pm to help us navigate insurance and other avenues to keep in mind during this time.

Now we are into the evening and I can feel my appetite is starting to deminish. My mouth feels dry and I do feel a little bit dehydrated so I am trying to drink some water (even though) I don't really feel like it. They are giving me fluids intravenously but have suggested I drink when I can as well.

Ronan, Russ, Edwin and Scott came down tonight with Chinese Food and four full heads of hair. We had a great time laughing and joking. The nurses enjoyed the energy in the room. The highlight of the evening was ... well, we can let the pictures tell the story.

Before...

The "Un-Hawk"

Male Pattern baldness the Spot

Fester

the first cut is the deepest

They administered the next round of Chemo when everyone was here. After shaving heads, and a few more photos, I was starting to feel the effects. The boys left and I went right to sleep.

There were TONS of pictures ... we will upload to picasa and let you know the link when it gets there. And we will try to post earlier in the days too...