Primo Chemo

OK, Folks! Today was round one of M. D. Anderson's Chemo treatment! It was a bear!

We thought we would be in and out in a reasonably short amount of time. WRONG! We got there around 6:30am, having driven over Sunday evening again, this time staying at a much more reasonably prices La Quinta near the south airport in Houston, nine minutes from the hospital. We left the hospital around 6:00pm! So much for quick!

Our first stop was at the blood lab. We checked in at the vampire station and gave a bit to the hungry critters there, (poor creatures alway need to be fed, it seems), then wandered up to see Dr. Kies, who is in charge of the Chemotherapy plan. He was not there when we got there, but he got in around 7:30 and we visited for a bit going over the game plan for the day.

Basically, we are doing three drugs for this treatment. Two of them are standard drugs that have been in use for a long time, and a third that is pretty new. The goal is to shrink the tumor and then see what we can do after that. We will give it a big hit initially, then boost my white blood cells tomorrow, then give me another treatment in a week, then do another round in two weeks after that. After the second full round we will rescan and see how the tumor has reacted to the treatments.

After visiting with Dr. Keis, his nurse came in and went over the side effects of all the drugs. As usual, they are many and varied. I will get a bad case of acne, my hair may fall out, I may get diarrhea. All of these are common, but not sure things.

Finally, Cheryl and I headed off to the Mays Clinic which is in another building far enough away that we had to ride a shuttle bus to get there

No fish tanks here, just interesting art work.

This Chemo area is much different from the one I visited in Austin. Each treatment area is a separate room with a bed and a TV. Good, I got sick of watching daytime TV back in Austin.

They wired my up to my IV in short order and pumped my up with something to make me drowsy before starting the actual Chemo cocktail. That did the trick. I do not remember much about the whole adventure I slept through most of the day. I would wake up from time to time to see Cheryl sitting by the bed, and the nurse on the other side fidgeting with the machinery making sure I had the right chemicals going into the tubes

I do remember getting cold while this was going on. So, they kept bringing in heated blankets for me to use. That worked great. Back to night-night land I would go.

All the while this was happening, the TV was showing some kind of old car rebuilding show. I have no idea why Cheryl kept that on, I guess she could not find HGTV. I remember watching some of it, but not much.

The hours crept by, and we were done. No hair loss, no acne, just a mild headache, but that is normal for me sitting in bed all day. They unplugged me, and Cheryl and I left the room and wandered down stairs to hunt down some prescriptions we needed before we could leave.

Actually, we stopped in the cafeteria first and had dinner to let traffic die down a bit before leaving town, then we went to the pharmacy.

We got our prescriptions, found the car, and headed home. You would think that after sleeping all day, I would be wide awake on the trip back home. Not so! I slept the entire trip home as well.

Cheryl! I owe you big time for all of this mess! Thank you so much for taking care of me during this whole day. I love you dearly!

I will put up more details about the drugs when they wear off a bit. Right now, I have to get my classes set up for tomorrow morning. I do have a full day teaching to get through. iSo far, I am feeling fine. We will see what tomorrow brings. Hopefully, the tumor is not doing so fine!