Round Four

Posted by Roie Black on Mon 21 April 2014

Hello again from Houston!

Not much to report since the last Chemo treatment round which was three weeks ago. The day eight treatment was a bit bad, I got very weak, but they figured out that was due to a lack of fluids so they compensated for that this time and things are much better now.

Cheryl gets a break

Cheryl got a break last week. My sisters came to baby-sit me while she got to head up to Kansas City to visit with her son and his family. She got to spend quality time with the grandkid and do duty giving him grandparent gifts. (That is the ruls, right? Wind them up, them leave them for the parents to unwind?)

She also got to work on our second house with it's beautiful new floors. We got this picture recently from our neighbors, so we could remember why we moved to Texas:

Jorboe in snow

The house looks perfect from the outside, and is pretty well done inside except for trimming and finishing the bathrooms and kitchen. Cheryl and Scott worked on the door trim work and got bids on the floor tile work for the bathrooms. They also worked up a list of everything else we need to do and we might just pay someone to finish the thing up, it is that close to being done! YEAH!

Sister Visit

Both of my sisters decided to take their Spring Break breaks and fly out to visit us for a week. They got here in time to do some shopping with Cheryl and visit for a while before she headed up to KC. They also got to be with us as I went and got Baptized! I know I did that when I was little, but I never did it when I knew what was going on, and since we are full-fledged members of Gateway Community Church here in Austin. I thought I should get Baptized officially on my own. Cheryl thought that was neat enough she wanted to do it with me, so we both did this at a nice private home on Lake Austin, attended by two ministers from the church so we could be dunked simultaneously, the homeowners, some members of our small group, and a variety of other folks and photographers from the church. It turned into kind of an event and went mini-viral on Facebook that evening. YIKES!

After Cheryl headed North, my sisters settled into baby-sitting duty, bugging me to take my medicine, and making sure all the household duties were being done. SO much for quiet time as a bachelor. All in all, they had a nice visit and headed back to D.C at 4AM on Saturday Morning! Cheryl got back home at 6:60 the next night, just in time to repack for our trip to Houston!

Unfortunately, Cheryl brought back what she though was a cold, so she did not feel really well when I met her at the Airport, and got worse on our trip to Houston.

Off to Houston

We found out that the treatment team was happy enough with the Chemo results to order a fourth round. That means the chemo is doing it's job of shrinking the tumor and they want to give it another shot at doing it again. Hopefully that will shrink it even more so they can get it out, probably with surgery. My hope is that it will move away enough that they can save my eye, but they is only a hope until we do more imaging. That is scheduled for May 1.

We drove over to Houston in my new Toyota Tacoma Truck! We finally retired the Highlander, 20,000 miles short of the Moon, 225000 miles. That is as far as I have ever driven one car. It would have gone farther, but we needed reliable wheeles to keep making these trips, so it was time. The Tacoma meets our needs for a utility vehicle, and it is an Access Cab so it sort of has seats inside for skinny people of luggage without sacrificing the pickup bed in back. It can also tow something like my Motorcycle if needed, so I am happy. And it has options. Even the bells and whistles have bells and whistles. Cheryl reports that she loves driving it. It is just the right size for her. Not so big it feels like a truck, more like a large car, and it is nice and quiet. A little bumpy, but not too bad and it is a truck.

We got to our La Quinta around 10:30pm and hit the hay right away since we had to get to the lab for blood work at 7:30am. After breakfast, we drove over to the hospital and found the place packed. M. D. Anderson gets patients from all over. There were even two folks from Virginia Tech sitting right in front of us in the waiting area for blood work. Small World.

We got our blood work done in short order, then headed off for another go at breakfast to help kill the two hour wait before we saw the doctor (or rather the PA). After Coffee for Cheryl and a Boost for me, we found the Business Office for Patients and got some critical paperwork for the AFLAC Duck (so we can get some of that famous AFLAC cash) then headed up for our next stop.

The PA who saw us mostly just asked how things were going. She did not know much about the big plan, that was another doctor's area, so we just reviewed how the chemo was going. And, that is mostly fine. We did talk about the shivering, which we have found a cure for, and the weakness I experienced after the day eight treatment las time, which they feel is due to lack of fluids, so they adjusted the treatment plan for round four. They also backed down on the main chemo drug for this round and sent me on our way.

We had another three hour break before the chemo could start, so we wandered over to the Post House, the hotel attached to the hospital to make reservations for the planned surgery dates. If that happens, and it may well, I will probably be here for some time, so we reserved a room for a week (at $180 a night - yikes!) But, it is attached to the hospital so Cheryl can walk over when needed, so it will be worth it.

After that, we headed over to the building where they do the chemo treatments and had lunch. Cheryl had a full chicken dinner, I had yogurt and Boost. I am feeling better about eating solid foods, but not quite up to chicken yet!

Once we checked in to the treatment clinic, we found it too was packed and the wait was estimated at 45 minutes (it turned out to be 90!). They finally called us in and we got taken back to our private treatment room. So far, so good. Then the nurse asked if I needed an iV or if I had a port. IV, thank you! So she tried to put on in and failed. Apparently, if they fail, someone wlse gets to try on another arm. Guess what, failed again. OUCH!. On try three, with a little more pressure (read that PAIN), they got it in. Good thing that somewhere in all those drugs were pain medicines, oh, and sleepy stuff.

It took a while to calm down, so Cheryl and I I watched them renovate a few old cars on TV until I dozed off. I seem to remember getting a round of Boost somewhere in there and waking up a few times as the treatment wore on, but I did sleep through a good part of the day and into the evening. It finally ended around 7:30. A long day, to be sure.

We headed out of town and drove straight home, since Cheryl was pretty wiped out from sitting with me all day and her nor feeling well in the first place. The drive home went smoothly in the new truck and we rolled into home around 10:30pm. We were greeted by our very hungry cat, who would not let us in until he knew he was first on the todo list for feeding.

Surgery?

We go back on May 1 to find out what comes next. They will take a few pictures and brief us on what they plan to do. I think we will be talking to our local doctors in the meantime to get our questions lined up and make sure we have an andle on our options. Pray for us in all this, we sure need them now!

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tags: Memories