Day Five Begins

Chemotherapy regimens differ depending on the type of cancer that one has and a multitude of other factors.  With the pure seminoma cancer that I have, my medical team put together a three cycle course over nine weeks.  Each cycle is the same with the first week in the outpatient infusion suite at Georgetown University Hospital where I sit in a comfy chair and get various bags of fluids and meds pumped into me for about seven hours each day.  Weeks two and three require just a single shot on the Tuesday which takes about an hour and then the next cycle starts in week four.

Each patient handles the treatment differently and from what I can tell, I'm doing as well or better than most.  The biggest impact has been on my energy level.   Imagine that you've got five power packs getting you through your day and you sleep and eat to recharge them after you draw them down during the day.  I feel as if two days of chemo robbed me of one pack and the third day took another so I'm down to three of five packs.  I walk more slowly and my affect is notably more muted.

People also talk about "chemo brain" wherein a patient will become a bit scatterbrained and/or forgetful.  I'm beginning to understand that a bit as I notice myself thinking more slowly and I'm not able to "execute" mental processing at the same rate as normal.   Abby asked me yesterday what I wanted to watch on TV here at the hospital and I really didn't care because my attention span was only about five minutes.

Nausea is also pretty common, but I've been lucky to avoid most of it.   My appetite has fallen off and I'm enjoying graham crackers, the odd bit of soup and fresh juice out of the juicer that my father bought me for my birthday this year.   As it turns out, you can juice kale and it's pretty good.   Add in the powerhouse drugs like Zofran and I'm hoping to keep the nausea at bay.

So, that all sounds rough, but I'm doing okay.   I stare at my IV and think of all of the noxious chemicals that pass through it and I can only smile at the reality that I'm so thankful for them.  You never think you'd ask someone to lop off one of your testicles, but I did.   I never thought I'd be so humbled by the millions who have traveled this road before me and the billions spent on cancer research so that I could sit here and be okay.  It was not always this easy.

All of that said, I'm doing pretty darned well.   I'm reminded of that every single morning when I listen to what's happening in Pakistan or think about the recently departed Vlad Bochkov (I hope to see my MSB folk at the service tomorrow).   Your messages of encouragement and emails mean a lot and with one week nearly down, my spirits are high.  I hope you all have a wonderful Friday and don't forget to do something nice for someone today.

Cheers,

Dom