The Friday after my first high-dose methotrexate was New Years Eve. We partied with some friends in Wallingford, and then the group walked to Gasworks Park to watch the fireworks at the Space Needle. My legs were absolutely exhausted by the walk to and back. They were not happy at all. The next morning the [...]
Hey there, long time no see! The last month has been a roller-coaster, full of ups and downs. In that order.
This is going to be really long. Check with your stomach first: is it growling? Grab a snack before starting to read. I care about your comfort!
At the beginning of December we did a bunch [...]
On Tuesday I wrote to Dr Norman to describe the litany of symptoms that have been ailing me for the last few weeks; that evening he responded that he would have some extra time Wednesday morning before his first patient, and that I should come by to see him.
His suspicion was that my correlating digestive [...]
The victory of the stem cell collection marked the end of needing to give myself the Neupogen shots each night, which is nice. But since then I’ve been dealing with a really annoying headache. Actually the headaches started during the week just before the collection; splitting headaches that couldn’t be extinguished laying down.
I tried taking [...]
Last Thursday I started the last lap around the R-CHOP track.
We started the day by talking with Dr Norman about the schedule for the next few weeks, then went to the Oncology Infusion Center for blood tests. Then back to Dr Norman for more intrathecal chemotherapy. Then back to the Oncology Infusion Center for round [...]
Continuing the story from last time, I was giving myself shots every night to build up my blood counts for the autologous stem cell transplant. I went to the SCCA and they gave my beefy veins the thumbs-up; I wouldn’t need an additional vein catheter to make this happen.
Bring on the bone pain, bring on [...]
It has been a crazy last two days. Crazy in the sense that they were more than expected.
First, we got some good news: the CT scan after my fourth round was mostly unchanged from after my second round, so we’re calling this a “complete response after two cycles” and that the disease has remained stable [...]
Last Friday I had another CT scan. We wanted to see the effects of two rounds worth of chemotherapeutic bombardment, and we were not disappointed!
Lymph nodes all over my body that were enlarged and opaque had returned to normal-sized translucency. My spleen has shrunk from enlarged-size to much closer to normal. Observe!
Spleen as seen in [...]
Maybe its because of a lower total tumor burden, maybe its because I knew better what to expect, but the effects of this second round of chemotherapy didn’t seem nearly as arduous as the first.
Which is good.
In fact, a few days ago (at the very end of the second round) I was feeling energetic and [...]
Yesterday I walked on my own power from the 4th floor observation rooms to the 5th floor Oncology Infusion Services department.
When we got to the desk the friendly staff announced “you must be Tom Music!” My reputation (and my appointment) preceeded me.
They took me to my room, showed us where to find the snacks and [...]