Today was the day after chemo day ... usually the worst day, but not too bad. For those keeping count, last night I only hurled once and a couple more times today. I cannot even handle the smell of food, let alone eat or drink anything, as my stomach is a little 'sensitive'.
Dr. Mavligit said I might not have to be in here as long as last time ... we will see. We are keeping our fingers crossed.
Liz's parents have been diligently standing by, helping out Liz in whatever way possible, while she does the same for me. I often wonder if our roles were reversed, if I could be as good of a caregiver.
The highlight of my day is the laps I do around the patient wing, dragging my IV dolly with me. I have found that the best music for this strenuous (it's all relative) activity is Best of Queen and Erin's Sunday Music Mix (thanks to Erin from Clairemont Covenant Church).
I have some new humor pages to add, which I hope to get to tonight, so check out the page tomorrow.
We hope that you are all doing well. Take care and God Bless.
9/19/00
Good morning. I was supposed to get picked up an hour ago to start the whole process of angiogram directed insertion of hepatic catheter (doesn't that sound fun?). So I thought I'd sneak on the computer (last night the 'charge nurse' told me patients weren't allowed ) and say hi to everyone ... the rest of today I have to lay flat on my back until after I get 'the juice' later tonight.
We have received many great emails and we feel lifted up by each one. Even our boys managed to send notes, although Cameron's was sent from the vice principal's office ... hmmmmm. Actually, all of their teachers have said they could take a break to send us a note when they need to. I imagine we will be getting one from Cameron about every hour or so during the school day.
More later.
9/18/00
We met with Dr. Mavligit today. His review of the recent scans was encouraging. He pointed out that the larger tumor appears to be largely necrotic --dead or dieing cells. So that's good news. Tomorrow is the 'fun' day.
9/13/00 update
I had scans done on Monday and the preliminary report is encouraging. Although the tumors have not disappeared (yet), the largest tumor is down a centimeter and the smaller ones have not grown AND there is no evidence of spread elsewhere. This means that the chemo treatment had some effect, which is always encouraging when dealing with a drug resistant cancer like melanoma.
In general, I have been building my health back up to be in as good a shape as possible for my next treatment, which will begin Monday, September 18th (get chemo on the 19th, recover in hospital for next five days or so).
I have been finetuning my anti-cancer, immune system enhancing diet (this is almost a full-time job) and have begun to explore options for meditation, visualization, and imagery techniques. There are still a lot of alternative therapy options I need to research (next month's task).
In the meantime, as you might expect, I have become much more spiritually inclined ... I cannot even pretend to guess how many prayer chains my family and I are on. One lady friend of a friend even went to a sacred place in Bosnia or Serbia and asked for us to be blessed. A few Sundays ago, I was presented the opportunity to attend a healing/prayer session after our church service and the experience was very powerful and moving.
In no way am I leaving this battle up to the medical team alone, as I intend to use every conceivable avenue