The Next Phase of Treatment-More Chemo Next Week

Though I really like to write in my blog in the morning, lately I have been exercising during that time. Today I wanted to wait until going to clinic to write just in case I got to hear more about the next phase of my treatment plan. And I did.

I got to meet up with my head doctor, Gwynn Long and his PA Tanya Helms to go over the next steps. I will finish 2 of the abx for pneumonia today after a 2 week course. I am continuing on the anti-fungal med for pneumonia probably for another month or more. That is the one I take by mouth 3x a day and have to take with a high fat meal to increase its absorption from my stomach. That may sound easy, but try eating something high fat 3x a day. Even ice cream gets old after a while. I have found that my old standby peanut butter has been especially helpful in this regard. It has plenty of fat; I like it; and it settles my stomach when I have those pangs of nausea. In the morning, I am drinking this concoction that Holly makes for me-part carnation instant breakfast in whole milk and part Ensure. For breakfast she drinks regular old coffee like I used to do. But I now need the fat and calories too much to waste time with coffee.

To check on the size of the pneumonia, I'll get a repeat Chest CT thursday afternoon. I don't know whether the pneumonia will be all gone, but they aren't going to let that stop the plan for more chemo. I'll be in the hospital next week for 5 days getting chemo 2x a day on days 1, 3 and 5. After that they said that I will get to go home and follow up in the clinic daily like I did last time.

As far as the long term plan, my doc sounds like he is leaning towards doing multiple rounds of chemo instead of the bone marrow transplant. My cancer has been very responsive to the chemo (must be kind of like the pinata), and he can hold the transplant in his back pocket for later if need be. Of course I don't love the idea of more chemo, but I have seen some people in the clinic with bad complications after transplant-complications that can be life threatening in and of themselves and drag on. I think he sees the chemo as giving me a cure (the rate is 80%) w/o all the potential serious complications associated with transplant. I know that I will be sick and nauseous but hopefully better after all of that is out of my system. I feel good right now, and I am ready to move on to the next treatment phase.

Holly and I will make good use of this time before I have to go into the hospital again next week. I started back on the rowing machine yesterday, doing aerobic exercise again. That feels really good. I don' t have the power and strength that I did before all of this treatment, but it doesn't matter. Maybe we can do something special this w-e to be together and have fun before all the hardship starts up again next week.