Cycle 2, Day 1

Drugs:

• Prevacid
• Dexamethosone
• Kytril for nausea instead of Zofran, but in the same family
• Emend
• Benadryl & Tylenol
• Saline drip
• Bleoymycin, Etoposide and Cisplatin chemo
• Additional saline post-chemo to flush kidneys

Nurse: Katelyn

I’m coming to you live from the Northwestern Medicine Cancer Center in beautiful Warrenville, IL (right by the Lifetime Fitness for those of you familiar with the western ‘burbs). This is technically my second day here, but it’s really my first full day as last week was just a bleo day.

Some notes about last Monday: The day went really smoothly, and it felt like I was leaving before I even got settled in. Since I was feeling pretty good, Jenna and I went to the Schmaltz Deli in Naperville and I housed a pastrami sandwich and part of Jenna’s Reuben.

After we got home, I went down to the basement to take a quick nap, and that’s when the fever set in. I was shivering under a blanket for about 45 minutes before I mustered the energy to move my arm about 18 inches  to grab my phone so I could text Jenna, “Help. I’m freezing.” At that point, my fever was only at 99.2, so I swallowed a couple more Tylenols, took a long, hot shower, and climbed into bed. An hour later and I was at 102.2, which is well above the “Alert your doctor” temp of 100.5, and getting into “Go to the Emergency Room” territory.

We called the on-call doctor, and she said it would probably be safest to go to the ER, but since I wasn’t experiencing any other signs of infection I could stay home if Tylenol brought it down. Well I wasn’t about to go to the ER, so I took some more Tylenol and used some Jedi mind tricks to bring the fever down. Within an hour and a half it was back to 99. Crisis averted.

I know it sounds crazy to go to the ER for a fever, but when you’re on chemo they want to make sure you don’t have an infection that your immune system can’t fight. After a brief consultation with Dr. Google, I learned a lot of people have a similar reaction to Bleoymycin, and taking some Dex (a steroid) on these Bleo-only days can help.

Anyway, I felt almost normal all week/weekend. Jenna and I went out to dinner Friday night, I stopped by the Jack Kicks Cancer 3v3 soccer tourney before hosting Jenna’s parents for dinner at our house, and then Jenna threw a little Luau for Father’s Day in our backyard. Oh, we also went to Port Edward, a fun nautical-themed restaurant that feels vacationy, for lunch on Sunday. And I mowed my lawn again. Kind of a busy weekend.

Oh, and if you couldn’t tell from the photo up top, my hair started falling out so I shaved it. I was in the shower on Tuesday, rubbed my hands on my head, and when I looked down they were covered in hair. A couple days later I noticed the same thing with my facial hair. It’s not a big deal to me to lose my hair, but it was a little unsettling to see it come out on my hands like that. Oh well. I still instinctively reach for the shampoo in the shower.

To make a long story longer, I’m now getting my Cycle 2, Day 1 treatment. We’ll see how it goes, but I’m hoping/expecting that my symptoms will remain under control during these next two cycles. I’ll probably get even more tired, but if that’s the worst of it, that’s ok. Keep your fingers crossed for no crazy, unexpected side effects.

There are some differences with treatment here versus NMH. First, the days are much longer. I used to be out of treatment on Mondays in about 4 hours, but I’ll be here from 9:30 – 5:30 today. Crazy. Part of it is they want to give me an extra liter of saline after my treatment, which takes about an hour. Besides that, there seems to be more lag time here in switching my IV bags, getting medicine, et. I’ve also been told not to take Tylenol and Benadryl throughout the day on my bleo days, which is different. Hopefully I don’t spike another big fever because of it. We’ll see. I’m sure these are minor issues, but anytime there are differences in care, it makes me a little nervous.

All right, back to my saline drip.