Tuesday Feb. 19th was a sleepless night due to pain throughout my entire body. I had a lot of bone and muscle aches along with sharp shooting pain. This kept me up all night. The same symptoms continued on throughout Wednesday and Thursday. I started to take two Vicodin at night and one during the day every few hours. Even with the amount of heavy meds I was still in a ton of pain and unable to get out of bed. Thursday evening it was worse and I suddenly came down with the chills. I knew that this could only mean a fever was on its way. While going through chemo any temp over 99 means a trip to the emergency room. So around 6:00 p.m. I took my temp and just as I thought I was 101. As soon as Becky came home she called my Doc who informed us to get right to emergency. Luckily the ER was not busy and I was put in an ER room right away. They took some blood, did a chest x-ray and immediately got me on Dilaudid injections through an IV. This Dilaudid worked great and would instantly make the pain tolerable. After a couple of hours the doctors said my white blood cell count was up and looking great, although my Neutrophil white blood cells were only at 7%. With this news the doctor admitted me to the Oncology department and got me started on antibiotics. I was given the Dilaudid every 4 hrs even though it only lasted 3 hrs, go figure- so I had to spend that last hour in pain. Finally we decided to try to stagger the drugs and give me the Oxycodone 2 hours after the Dilaudid. While this worked, I became completely useless and could do nothing but try to sleep. Finally this morning [Saturday] I took my last Dilaudid injection at around 6 a.m. and only took the Oxycodone for the remainder of the day. I was finally able to go home this afternoon. I am continuing to take the Oxycodone every two hours. On Sunday if I have any pains I’ll only be able to take Tylenol due to my surgery being Monday. The doctor thinks that the pains are most likely due to the Neulasta shot as my overall white blood cell count on Saturday was really high. So my bone marrow was working extremely hard trying to produce all the white blood cells. He also thinks I got another infection which is what brought the fever on.
I just gotta stay germ free and healthy.
Our PDX
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Chemo #2- Full update
I had a couple of really good days before I started my second chemo treatment on Thursday. It felt great to actually feel 100% normal with no flu symptoms and no side affects.
On Thursday morning (Valentine's Day) we started with the IV around 10:30am and they gave me the nausea meds first. During the day a men's acapella quartet showed up to sing to the cancer patients for Valentine's Day. Then they did the "push" drugs which are given through the IV but pushed in with a needle. These are too thick to go through a bag and drip in. And these are the bad ones that give you all the nasty side affects. The first was the Vinblastine, which was clear, and
you can see this in the first picture.
The second was the - Adriamycin, the nasty red one- that could cause damage if it got outside of my vein. They both went in with out any problems.
After the push drugs were administered, they put me on the IV/bag starting with the Bleomycin, followed by the Dacarbazine. When they started the Dacarbazine, I ran into some problems.
It made my whole right arm lock up and extreme pain was shooting up and down my arm from my elbow to my finger tips. I thought this was so odd because I didn't have any problems like this the first time. So they hooked up two bags of saline and let those drip fast and put the drugs on a slow drip to try and dilute it. Then they wrapped my arm up with an electric heating pad. This helped but it was still uncomfortable just not as painful. This process took about an hour and half and I was done with the days treatment by 3pm.
The nurses have suggested that I get a port installed due to this latest issue with the drugs. It will prevent this from happening again and it will also save my veins from any damage that can occur with the treatment I receive. This port basically gives the nurses and doctors unlimited access to withdraw blood or administer the drugs- like having direct IV access without all of the continuous prodding and poking of veins. I have decided to go with this. It is a minor out patient surgery that should take about 4 hours. The port goes in the chest and through the larger veins by the heart. My port procedure will happen before my next Chemo appt. in two weeks.
I left the Oncology center feeling ok, just light headed and dizzy. Becky and I grabbed a quick lunch then went home and I got in bed. I stayed in bed for the majority of the evening and waited to see if the pain would come back like before. BUT IT DIDN'T. THANK GOD! I even had a chance to attempt some meditation based on a CD that was given to me.
I was able to get a good nights' sleep and woke up on Friday feeling good. I went back to my oncology center on Friday to receive a Neulasta shot that will help produce more white blood cells since mine are on a steady decline but still in good shape. This is more preventative maintenance. The downside is this shot makes your bone marrow expand which means lots of bone aches for the next 2-3 days. On Saturday I woke up feeling completely off. I can't really describe how I was feeling. I had no energy at all and some pretty bad bone aches, which I am assuming was from the Neulasta. I spent the entire day in bed and took a couple of naps.
On Sunday (today) I woke up feeling a little better. I still had some bone aches and the jaw pain that I experienced last time was back again. This jaw pain causes my entire mouth to hurt and makes eating a very painful experience for the first few bites. I decided to not take any of the heavy drugs the doctor has prescribed and stick with just Tylenol through out the day. This helps but of course doesn't take the pain away. It's now Sunday night and the jaw pain is only getting worse. I think it may be time to load up on the heavy stuff…
On Thursday morning (Valentine's Day) we started with the IV around 10:30am and they gave me the nausea meds first. During the day a men's acapella quartet showed up to sing to the cancer patients for Valentine's Day. Then they did the "push" drugs which are given through the IV but pushed in with a needle. These are too thick to go through a bag and drip in. And these are the bad ones that give you all the nasty side affects. The first was the Vinblastine, which was clear, and
you can see this in the first picture.
The second was the - Adriamycin, the nasty red one- that could cause damage if it got outside of my vein. They both went in with out any problems.
After the push drugs were administered, they put me on the IV/bag starting with the Bleomycin, followed by the Dacarbazine. When they started the Dacarbazine, I ran into some problems.
It made my whole right arm lock up and extreme pain was shooting up and down my arm from my elbow to my finger tips. I thought this was so odd because I didn't have any problems like this the first time. So they hooked up two bags of saline and let those drip fast and put the drugs on a slow drip to try and dilute it. Then they wrapped my arm up with an electric heating pad. This helped but it was still uncomfortable just not as painful. This process took about an hour and half and I was done with the days treatment by 3pm.
The nurses have suggested that I get a port installed due to this latest issue with the drugs. It will prevent this from happening again and it will also save my veins from any damage that can occur with the treatment I receive. This port basically gives the nurses and doctors unlimited access to withdraw blood or administer the drugs- like having direct IV access without all of the continuous prodding and poking of veins. I have decided to go with this. It is a minor out patient surgery that should take about 4 hours. The port goes in the chest and through the larger veins by the heart. My port procedure will happen before my next Chemo appt. in two weeks.
I left the Oncology center feeling ok, just light headed and dizzy. Becky and I grabbed a quick lunch then went home and I got in bed. I stayed in bed for the majority of the evening and waited to see if the pain would come back like before. BUT IT DIDN'T. THANK GOD! I even had a chance to attempt some meditation based on a CD that was given to me. I was able to get a good nights' sleep and woke up on Friday feeling good. I went back to my oncology center on Friday to receive a Neulasta shot that will help produce more white blood cells since mine are on a steady decline but still in good shape. This is more preventative maintenance. The downside is this shot makes your bone marrow expand which means lots of bone aches for the next 2-3 days. On Saturday I woke up feeling completely off. I can't really describe how I was feeling. I had no energy at all and some pretty bad bone aches, which I am assuming was from the Neulasta. I spent the entire day in bed and took a couple of naps.
On Sunday (today) I woke up feeling a little better. I still had some bone aches and the jaw pain that I experienced last time was back again. This jaw pain causes my entire mouth to hurt and makes eating a very painful experience for the first few bites. I decided to not take any of the heavy drugs the doctor has prescribed and stick with just Tylenol through out the day. This helps but of course doesn't take the pain away. It's now Sunday night and the jaw pain is only getting worse. I think it may be time to load up on the heavy stuff…
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