Return of the Chemo

We're at the hospital again today. Tim's blood counts were so high throughout the first cycle that he did not need a single blood transfusion, which we're told is a very good thing. He took the opportunity to get ill last week and recovered at a relatively regular rate. As a result of his maintained blood counts, though, they increased the dosage to give him a more intense round for this cycle, so there is a chance that the side effects of this cycle will be more severe than for the last.


Speaking of ill, I am. Consequently, when I am cooking for us I get to utilize the lovely masks that mother graciously gifted us with, which one individual in our household finds endlessly entertaining and about which the other gets almost equally grumpy. Another effect of my cold is that T may be going to stay with his family this week. When he is wearing the chemo bags, he gets nervous about catching the tubes on something. As our apartment isn't exactly colossal, he feels a tad squeezed in the home space, another reason to visit his parents' more spacious abode. I'm all for it, as it will afford me time to clean and do schoolwork, but I wish he would have told me before we dropped a load of cash stocking up on superfoods last night. Le sigh. If he thinks it's that easy to avoid my sauteed kale, he's another thing coming...there will be a plate prepared and waiting for his return on Friday!

We obtained a second car this past weekend, so we'd like to give a shout out to my parents and Becky for that. Ever distrustful of Chicago drivers, my dad lent my sister one of his cars and she gave us hers for the time being, so now T can drive himself to the hospital and to work when he is feeling well enough to do so. Now we're rockin' two Chevy Cavaliers at our place, Goldie and Corn Hunter. This should definitely make things easier for us. Thanks, fam!


We took advantage of fall a bit ago with Tim's family by visiting an apple orchard near their house.

It starts...

Tim started the new regimen yesterday. Today we are sitting in the hospital room getting the Rotuxin treatment, which is the one that takes 4-6 hours. T is tired, but in good spirits. He didn't feel any nausea until this morning, which is what we expected after the last round.

Yesterday they placed the PICC line in his upper right triceps, which means there are two small tubes dangling from his arm at all times. Currently there are bags of chemo attached to the tube, each about the size of a quart-sized Ziploc bag. He has a shoulder bag holding the chemo packs around his body and it fits under his arm, reminiscent of leather water pouch favored by travelers or adventuring archaeologists. The attached bags make bathing and sleeping a challenge. Last night as Tim was trying to climb into the bathtub, I held the pouch for him and prepared to help him wash up. I remembered that I hadn't brought in a towel for when he was finished, so I went to get it...while carrying the chemo bag. Had it not been so utterly terrifying, it would have been hilarious. Sleeping has also been interesting. I set T up in the middle of our queen sized bed with the chemo bag on his right side and his phone and a light within reach, so if he needs help getting up and I'm not answering his pleas, he can ring me from the bedroom. I am for the time being sleeping on the recliner in the living room.



We made sure to plan a fun weekend to preface the new regimen and our new schedule. My cousin Dan was married on Saturday and we stayed in a hotel for that both Friday and Saturday. Tim got tired toward the end of the eve on Saturday and he went to bed a bit early, but at the beginning of the dancing portion of the reception, he was a twisting machine! Sunday we had a quiet day of reading, napping, baking tomatoes and general recovery and on Monday, we had lunch in Chinatown with our friend Richard and his roommate and saw the lovely Jessica and her Tim for a bbq that night. It was a tiring weekend, but a nice lead-in to the long week ahead.

Better a bald head than no head at all. -Austin O'Malley

T's hair has started to go. Last night I buzzed his head and now his beard is longer than his hair, which is fun. We've read that in certain circumstances chemo patients lose only the hair on the dome, but it seems as though his beard is also falling out. Picture an eyebrow-free Yul Brynner; that's the look we're going for. To the blazes with Nefertari...if anything can top our canceled Halloween wedding plan (Frankenstein's monster and the bride), it's Tim as pharaoh and Charlton Heston for me.

We traveled to Neponset to see my parents and pick up a new used chair this past weekend. My uncle and dad were thoughtful enough to load it in the van and our friends Mike and Becca helped me move it upstairs, graciously accepting farm fresh produce as reward for their toils. As anyone who has been to our place knows, our couch and love seat have seen better years, possibly decades. The new addition is a lift chair that almost completely reclines, so when he starts the intense treatment next week and he must have the chemo bags attached to him at all times, Timberly will have an alternative to the bed to rest in and remain comfortable. See the picture and visualize it in dark green. It stands him almost completely for when he's feeling weak. It's pretty rockin'.

T has finally gotten his appetite back, almost just in time for the chemo to start. This week we are stuffing him with full fat and calorie foods, hoping to put on a little of the weight he's lost before he starts feeling cruddy again. A side effect of his cancer, then, is that I have gained 4 pounds, one more reason why it's good that I no longer need to worry about that wedding dress! I baked Tim an apple pie last night with apples from the farm and we're going to eat it with ice cream when I get home from trading cars with my mom this eve. It required the use of 3 sticks of butter and a full cup of sugar, so this baby better be as good as it looks and smells. While it's far from a superfood, I think we'll worry about getting back to those when he's eating more selectively again. For now, we chow down!

Fungus Factories

Today, T and I went in for him to get some blood work done. His white blood cell count is just in the normal range despite the chemo, which is a plus. It is considerably lower than before the chemo, which is expected. We'll find out from Dr. G exactly what that means next week, but the nurse who works closest with him said it is a good thing.

While we sat in the lobby, a man wearing street clothes and a surgical mask (presumably due to a compromised immune system) walked in and asked the receptionists for a wheelchair to take him to his car. He happened to leave at the same time as us and as we were waiting for the elevator, he informed us that we should wear shoes in a hospital. He asked if we were "trying to make a fashion statement," at which point we discerned that we had unconsciously agitated him by wearing flip-flops to our appointment. He called our feet "fungus factories." The security guard pushing the wheelchair rolled his eyes and we waited for the next elevator.

New news

We heard from the nurse today about the results of the bone marrow biopsy and Tim's marrow has been taken over by the lymphoma. This means the cancer is more aggressive than the doctor had initially thought and it completely changes the treatment for T. To borrow from Vonnegut, so it goes.

The chemo treatment will still occur in one out of every three weeks, but instead of going in for a few hours during one day of chemo week, he'll be at the hospital every day. Generally it will be on Monday through Friday, but for the first treatment, we'll be going Tuesday through Saturday (Labor Day threw us off schedule). T is going to have a PICC line inserted into his arm on the first day of the new treatment. This will stay in throughout the regimen, hopefully until November or December. On the first chemo day of the week, he will then get two bags attached to the PICC line, each with a pump. One of the bags will have two types of chemo in it and that will stay in place through the entire week. The other bag will have another type of chemo in it and will need to be changed every 24 hours by the staff at our hospital. This entire process will be done with him as an outpatient, so while he does need to be at the hospital daily, he will not need to stay over. On the final day, Tim will have both bags removed and will have a fourth type of chemo that will only take about an hour to run. Then we're footloose and fancy-free for four days!

In each of the two weeks between chemotherapy, Tim will need bi-weekly blood or platelet transfusions. The number may go up or down, depending on how he responds, and we will be doing this on Tuesday and Friday. The transfusions will require 6-8 hours in the hospital and they will use blood banks as sources. I was concerned about needing donations from relatives for the platelet transfusions, but apparently as long as we all visit our Red Crosses like the upstanding citizens we are, he'll have access to plenty of the necessary fluids. My ignorance of the transfusion process reared her ugly head with that concern.

This almost feels like starting over. There is good news in all of this, though. We are not sure yet, but they may have to do fewer of these treatments than he would have had for the R-CHOP (original regimen), so he could be done earlier than December, but we are not getting our hopes spectacularly high. I believe the number of treatments depends on how he responds over time, something we need to clear up with the doctor before getting excited. More good news is that Dr. G is confident, in his words, that this regimen will rid T's body of the lymphoma. We have an appointment to get more information next Friday and we'll get started with the new chemo on the day after Labor Day.

So every week in the near future, Timmeh (and I when I can) will be in the hospital for at least two days. We are trying to figure out how we will schedule all of these appointments while I work full time, have class two nights, and am expected to observe a classroom for two days of the week this semester and Tim works part time and has class two nights per week. Luckily, we have family 'relative'ly close in proximity and some wonderful friends who have offered to run carpool for T when we need them. Plus, my amazing boss and lovely coworkers have been nothing but supportive of us and have offered more understanding than I could have forseen. Our cup overfloweth.

"This guy!"

Chemo - the day after

Today was definitely more difficult for Tim. He woke up around 7:30 with nausea, stomachache, etc. I was able to work from home again, which was very helpful. We had some pill confusion, but got it sorted out and T napped most of the day. He was able to eat a little and was feeling a bit restless by the time his sleep quota was met. We haven't been out of the apartment outside of appointments for a while, so we went to see District-9 in the early eve. I found it funny that he was able to suppress the old cancer-cough for 2 hours while the elderly gent behind us couldn't stop from kicking T's chair and commenting on each scene, but we thoroughly enjoyed the movie despite. When we came home, I made him some sauteed spinach and chicken for din-din. He ate it all and took one of his sleeping pills for the first time and is about to be out. Hopefully he feels better tomorrow...