Starting Chemo

Hello again from various parts of Austin!

Well, today was a busy day. This morning at 8:30, Cheryl and I popped into the Oncology office where I got my first chemo infusion. Yeah - another non event! But this one took 3.5 hours! Before we left home, I rubbed an anesthetic cream they prescribed over the "port" thingy they put in my shoulder for this purpose. The nurse stuck an IV needle into the port which was completely numb. Bingo - no pain (I could get over my dislike of needles if this keeps up!) Then they talked us through the million or so side effects you "might" get from this (we don't listen to most of them - in rare cases some of them are nasty!) Then they gave me a bunch of fluids and potassium and magnesium that you lose from the treatment(those are metal aren't they? Weird!) They also gave me a nausea medicine since that is a common side effect of this stuff. A couple of hours of that then they gave me the real "chicken soup" - er - chemo stuff. It came in a plain brown IV bag because it was shy - or light sensitive - or something. That took about an hour to pump in. Then they gave me a few more fluids, pulled the IV out and sent me home.

I got some reading done, watched a movie on my iPod (so that is what those things are for - doctors offices!) I also had a nice chat with a couple next to me during this. The lady who was also going through the treatments used to program supercomputers like I ran for the Air Force way back when. Her husband did the same thing. Talk about a small world, three geeks in a row!

Chery and I went home after a short lunch, then at 3:00 it was back up to the radiation center for another toasting session. These are still boring - but that is fine! It might get a bit more intense as we get further along. I did get to talk to the radiation doctor after the treatment for a little primer on how all this works. Basically, that noodle strainer they use locks you into position for the treatment. They then take two quick x-rays to spot the target point for the treatment. Once they have that pinned down, the table I am strapped down to moves slightly to align the machine, then they turn it loose to run the program the doctor designed for the treatment. The target point is located to with a millimeter, but the beam is about 6 centimeters wide so it zaps a pretty big area. The machine sends the rays through your body from a dozen different angles, and the beam does its thing from each angle. The idea is to dose the target multiple times, while dosing the tissue around it as few times as possible. The target cancer cells get wiped out and any other damage heals normally. The chemo I am getting is supposed to wake up any remaining cancer cells so they really get blasted by the radiation. Sounds complicated, but it has a good record of working. I have to wait several weeks after all this ends to do the test and make sure every one of those bad cells went bye-bye. ("T minus about 11 weeks and counting" HA!)

We are both still getting a ton of emails and well wishes from many folks, and we sure need that support. All of this stuff takes a toll on both of us, and all of you help keep the rough spots much smoother. We are forever grateful for all of you in our lives.

Roie