Chemo: Round 2

A new course of chemo started on Thursday. It was supposed to be Wednesday, but when we met with the oncologist (Stephenson) he sent Steve to the hospital for an ultrasound of his leg to rule out that he might have a DVT (deep vein thrombosis). He's been having a lot of pain in his leg, which has concerned us. But fortunately there doesn't appear to be any clot.

Because that took the better part of the day on Wednesday, they pushed Steve's chemo day to Thursday.

Going to the oncologist is kind of like airline travel. You have a 9:30 appointment and they appear to take you on time but then you sit in the examination room for more than an hour waiting for the actual doctor to appear. It's like the flight being considered to be on time because they pushed away from the gate - and then sat for hours on the runway! But, always being prepared, I had a deck of cards with me. So Steve and I played several "shoes" of blackjack before the doc came in. Then he played two hands (losing). He's actually a pretty cool guy and we both feel very comfortable with him. But unfortunately it's a very busy practice. We never go to the cancer center that it is not teeming with people in the waiting rooms, in the chemo suites, in radiation. It is always a depressing start to the day - at least for me.

The chemo suite is much like you've seen on TV - big lounge chairs for the patients, hard uncomfortable chairs for the care givers (there are some more comfortable ones but you've got to get there early to snag one). His first round of chemo was an infusion pump that he got hooked up with on Monday, wore all week and then turned in on Friday. This round is the traditional sit-in-the-chair-and-get-juiced. Some people get 4-5 hours of chemo and may go several times a week. Steve's treatments are two bags that take a little more than two hours to drip in... he also gets an additional drug that is injected during the treatment - Leukovin - that enhances the effectiveness of the 5-FU (that's the chemo drug name). The info they gave us on that also says it may heighten the side effects.

Side effect wise, the first and almost immediate impact was the return of "metal mouth". Apparently, almost all chemo patients experience this, which is when almost everything you eat or drink has a nasty metallic taste to it. This makes eating a less than enjoyable experience and, in Steve's case where he needs to put on some weight to be stronger to handle the treatments, it's a double challenge.

He's had one small bout of nausea and I'm hoping that it was unrelated to the chemo. Won't really know about that until we see if there's more of that to come. I pray not.

That's about it for now. More later this week.