Happy New Year!

Well it is the last day of 2009 and so its time to put the old behind us and look forward to the new. Today I put Week #8 behind me and I am looking forward to 2010 and only 4 more chemo sessions. 2009 isnt going up there on our list of favorite years but we got through it and we have a clean slate starting tomorrow.  Carol and I are just trying to hold on through the next couple of months so we can put this chemo behind us. Then, once that is done, we are going to find a beach somewhere and spend a whole week relaxing and re-charging the batteries. We have always wanted to go see Sannibel Island which is off the coast of Florida and is known for lots of sea shells and sharks teeth. I will be on disability but the plan is to try and delay the disability long enough so that I am recovered enough to enjoy the week at the beach. With 2 sessions in Jan and 2 in Feb we are probably going to try for mid March. Can’t wait!! We will definitely deserve it by then!

 

As for my treatment plan, we decided to adjust the dosage down just a little bit. The doctor was concerned about the way I am handling the full dose so we are splitting the difference between a full dose and a ¾ dose. Do the math but that is something like a 7/8 dose J

All my blood work is still within range but the platelets were pretty low. If they continue to drop by the next session we may have to skip a week to build them back up. I am really hoping that doesn’t happen, I want to keep going until this is done!!!

 

Well I better get going, we have a few friends coming by for some appetizers and I need to go make sure I look acceptable. I don't get out much J

Peace, Love, and Happy 2010!!

John and Carol

Week 8 already??

Hi everyone,

We are just about ready to start the treatment for Week 8 (on Thur) and I don't feel ready at all.  I have been sick in bed or on the recliner every day since the last treatment on Dec 18^th with just a few hours here and there where I felt even close to normal. I am really worn out and run down and now Week 8 is upon me! I do have the option of backing off on the dosage this week and just going with a ¾ strength dose, but I feel that this is cheating the system and I am not getting the full benefit of the chemo. On the other hand I am sure that the next 2 weeks will be absolutely brutal if I take the full dosage. As of today I don't know which way to go but I am leaning to taking the full dose and seeing what the next 2 weeks are like and then adjusting it at that point. At least I will be 9 weeks in of the 12 week program which is 75%.

 

I have worked out a deal with my boss where I am not going to go on disability unless I absolutely have to. He has given me some little special projects that don't require much effort so that I can stay on full pay. He has taken all my other normal tasks and spread them around to others on our team. I certainly am blessed to have him as a boss but even with his help I know I will hit disability at some point. My plan is to go as long as I can and then take the 6 weeks at full pay to recover. So if I finish up the chemo in Feb, I might just take a 6 week vacation after that. I would get full pay and I would not have to work. It would be a good recovery time and hopefully Carol and I could go sit on a beach somewhere and relax.

 

Anyway, this is all in the future, right now I am focusing on the next two weeks. Please keep us in your prayers, its going to be very tough.

Peace and Love

John

A major struggle this time

Hi everyone

(Here is a Hershey’s Christmas tree ornament from GMAJO!!) Thanks GMAJO!!

Also a picture of Carol showing off some new earrings!!

Merry Christmas to you all, I hope everyone had a great holiday! Me, not so much I’m afraid. This time I had totally atypical week. First I got the chemo last Friday and I was sick through Tues as expected. I started to climb out of it on Wed when “BAM!!” it hit me again. It was almost like someone snuck in the house and slipped me another treatment. But this one was worse. I was so sick yesterday that I barely remember the day. I was in bed most of the time and pretty much incoherent on the recliner the rest of the time. I am so nauseous, I have mouth sores that won't quit and I am dizzy and not with it at all.

 

I’m taking my meds and they help but they also put me out of commission so I have been out of it for over  a week now without being able to work or do much of anything else.

I fully expect to go on disability starting the first of the year, or at least, I will modify my schedule significantly. My boss is  trying to do anything he can to keep me off disability but I am not sure it’s the right thing for me to do any work right now, even if it would keep my take home higher..its not about the money right now, its about surviving the chemo and I don't know if I can do both.

More to come on that.

 

For all you family and friends who I said I would call, you are still on my list and in my heart, I just cannot handle it right now. Please keep us in your prayers, we are in the home stretch and its very difficult for both of us.

 

This week we are having treatment #8 a day early (on NY EVE) because of the holiday. I can't wait! What a thing to look forward to for the start of the year. If you can't tell, I am a bit depressed about the whole thing right now, but that will go away too.

Take care everyone and we will catch up with you in 2010!

Peace and Love

John

Week 7 update

Hi everyone…its time for the Week 7 update and I guess its all as expected. I am at my maximum dose and certainly feeling it today. I am maxing out on my nausea pills but still feel very sick and unable to work or do much of anything. I can handle the nausea but I am waiting to see if the vertigo or mouth problems show up. If they don't, and its just the nausea then I will feel lucky and just hang tough.

The doctor said he didn’t think the vertigo was related to chemo as all my blood came back normal so we are just going to watch and wait. It was possibly an inner ear infection  or something like that. As for the mouth sores, that seems to be hit or miss so again we wait and watch.

My brother and his son came down last week and spend Wed-Mon with us so that was a great treat. I am attaching a picture of my brother (Paul) and his son (David) along with Carol and me at lunch last week. We had a nice visit, especially seeing David who is living in China for a few years teaching English as a second language to people in China. He will be heading back for one more year and then returning to the States to get his masters.

 

Other than that its pretty much normal stuff for us…get through the chemo, enjoy the good times when you can and looking forward to Christmas!

I am looking at 5 more sessions of this nastiness and then I am free again!! This time we are not going to look too far forward and just hope for the best and pray for clean scans from now on!!

Peace and love to all of you!

John and Carol

Time to Fight Back!!

Hi Everyone,

Now that we are past the half-way point in the chemo treatment, its time to get serious and start fighting back. Check out this picture…this is me getting into “fight back mode” I am going to start kicking butt and taking names (of side effects) later!

 

Between the guns and the tats, this is not someone you should take lightly. Stay angry my friends!!

LOL….

I must be losing my mind because this is funny, funny stuff

John

Blood work came back ok

Hi everyone

Well the mystery continues…...my blood work all came back normal (at least for the things they test for) so now we have to start thinking that maybe this is something unrelated to cancer. One  pitfall of cancer, if you aren’t careful, is that you tend to associate everything that happens to you with it. It is just as likely that I have some condition that shows itself as vertigo. Who knows, I don't have time to be sick right now, I’m too busy having cancer!!! LOL….

 

Seriously my plan is to just ride this out for a couple of weeks with the meds I have and see what happens. It will either go away or it won't and then I can work with my primary physician on it.  I’m sure he is going to love trying to figure this one out!!

 

I did have a pretty good week overall though, no mouth sores this week!!

 

I head to Week 7 on Friday as strong as can be expected given where we are. I am starting to feel the cumulative effects of the chemo though. It is taking almost the entire “free” week to recover from the “bad” week, which leaves little to no time to get caught up for the next round. I especially notice this at work..my concentration is shot and I have a very difficult time doing the most basic tasks. I know I will be going on disability here shortly..probably after the first of the year. That’s ok though, I have great benefits for this and my boss is very supportive.

 

I hope everyone is almost ready for Christmas. Take some time this week and stop rushing around and think about what is important, like…”I wonder if I will get any chocolate for Christmas??”

Peace and love…and chocolate for ALL my friends!

John

More on Week 6

Hi

Between yesterday and today the dizziness and loss of balance that I am having got quite a bit worse. I feel like I am on a merry go round even when I am just sitting in a chair. When I move my head it seems to move in stages causing me to feel like I am leaning or falling down.

We called the doctor and he said it might be that my blood pressure was too low but that wasn’t the case so he had me come in and give some blood so they could do a work up. That was this morning and I haven’t heard from them yet. They did give me a pill that helps the spinning feeling and it seems to be helping a little bit but this is pretty weird.

 

Driving is out of the question and walking is an adventure by itself. If I am not careful, I end up bouncing off the wall J I have to stand up very slowly, get my bearings and walk very slowly to where I am going. If I don't have something to hold on to it feels like I am going to fall down

I sure hope they figure out what is going on. It might be an infection that is causing the balance problems but who knows??

 

I will update you all as soon as I hear something but for now I am just going to stay in my chair (or bed) and wait for it to go away!!

Peace and Love,

John

Week 6--An unusual week

Hi everyone,

First, here is a picture of Carol and her new ear rings and also a picture of her with our friends.  Last night we went out to dinner and then went to these gardens that were decorated for Christmas. It was pretty cool and doesn’t Carol look cute too J?

 

I apologize for not keeping this more up to date but it has been a very unusual week. The first part went normally and I was sick for the first 3-4 days and it was pretty bad. But then, instead of getting back to normal I started feeling really dizzy and I also had to deal with the worst heartburn I have ever had.

 

First to the dizzies…One of my routine tests keeps showing that my Vitamin D levels are low or as the doctor says “Profoundly Low”. I can't remember the exact number but I was so far out of normal range that it wasn’t funny. Anyway, I asked him what we should do and he prescribed a Vitamin supplement and we would check it in 6 months. When I asked him what he would be worried about if a patient had consistently low Vitamin D levels he said “risk of breast cancer…if you were a woman” J Since I am not a woman I am not sure if we worry too much about the Vitamin D until we do another test in 6  months. I only bring it up because the dizziness I felt after this week’s chemo felt like it was fairly serious and was not just a little light headedness…I don't know how to describe it but I think you know what I mean when you can just tell that something is not right with your body. Either it’s a chemical imbalance or something else is out of whack, doesn’t matter…you can just tell right?? Well that is how I feel about this dizziness. This is not the kind of dizziness where you feel a little light headed if you get up too quick…this is the kind of dizziness where you have to hold on to the wall while you walk down the hall or you will stumble. I have to grab hold of the kitchen counters to get myself around the kitchen.

I know this is not right so I will be calling him  tomorrow to see what he says. I know he is going to want blood so we will see what we see. Something is not right inside me J

 

Besides that, this week has been spent dealing with bad, bad heartburn. This is a known side effect of one of the drugs..(I can't remember which one right now) so I need to let him know about that. Its really bad, to the point where even a glass of water feels like I drank some broken glass. Laying down in bed is really tough too because it seems to make it worse.

 

So between the heartburn and this weird dizziness it has not been a normal week. It hasn’t been horrible either though. I guess I will take dizzy over nauseous any day, except this has me kind of worried until we figure out what is causing it…it might not even be chemo related, maybe something else is messed up inside.

Oh well, we will figure it out this week I’m sure.

This is a special week also..my brother and his son are coming down from upstate NY to visit us for a week and we can't wait to see them. My nephew is spending some time teaching English in China so I’m sure he will have some interesting stuff to talk about!!!!

 

I will let everyone know what is going on with me after next week. It is probably just something temporarily out of whack so we will figure it out and fix it!!!

 

Peace and Love to you!

John and Carol..

Week 6 Update

Hi everyone,

Well week 6 is complete but it is a rough one for me. I was in bed all day yesterday feeling very sick. Today is a little better but still very nasty. Carol called the doctor and he prescribed a stronger anti-nausea pill so Carol got that this morning.

I’m glad this marks the half way point because it is starting to build up in me. I can tell because I get sicker each week and it takes longer to recover. I might have to look into going on short term disability if this keeps up.

I’m off to bed but I will update some more later this week.

Peace and Love

John

Gearing up for Week 6

Hi everyone

Since this week is a “good” week for me I don't want to talk about chemo, side effects of chemo or cancer. This week I am just focusing on the good things and there are so many of them that this time is just a bump in the road as far as I am concerned. I have been so blessed in my life in so many ways that I can only be grateful for everything that has happened to me, cancer included.

Today I feel lucky just to be alive and to have the family and friend that I have…and that’s all I am thinking about today.

So if you wanted to hear anything about chemo, or cancer or side effects…wait until next week!! This week is a good week.

Peace and Love

John

 

PS This picture was taken on a boat that I rented on Carol’s birthday 2 years ago for a ride up the Cape Fear River..you can see part of Wilmington in the background and 2 extraordinarily good looking people in the foreground J