Category: nsclc

More like “Hell 18 Days” if the experience of last time is any indication.  M had chemo Tuesday and his pegfilgrastim (Neulasta) shot yesterday. 

So far the side effects are:  bone pain, general pain, nausea, itchy skin, constipation, reddened skin, voice changes, and his face is puffy. He also has “chemo brain” with its fuzziness of thought. He started losing hair about 10 days ago, he shaves his head so you wouldn’t notice it there but other body hair is falling out.  He doesn’t have any underarm hair left & yesterday he even noticed his eyelashes coming out.

I’m sure I missed a few, or more likely,  there’s a few M isn’t telling me…

M was looking forward to a good week as he’d been told by the chemo nurse, and I had read, that by the week before the next treatment he’d start to feel better.  He’s had a few good hours most days this week but overall it’s been pretty bad.

The main things he tells me are chills, bone pain, and hand and feet numbness… but in looking at him, he just doesn’t look good.  The fatigue is relentless. And only one treatment has happened,  there’s three more scheduled, how’s he going to feel by mid September?

Overnight,  the giant boil popped.  M said it was incredibly horrible tasting.  But now hopefully it can start to heal.

As of this post I am done with the historical timeline so hopefully the entries will be slightly less mechanical seeming…

M is on a roll today, he drove himself to get his blood drawn at a local lab, went to visit B for a bit, and even mowed some. He’d worn himself out by 1 pm and then slept for a couple hours.

Today was the first day that M ventured out of the house on his own in two full weeks.  He is still having a myriad of side effects but the intense pain is mostly gone. 

His primary care Dr’s office called, the last blood test shows elevated glucose, they’d like him to get his A1C checked every week for three months. They wanted to discuss diet. Really? We’re at a point where, for two out of three weeks it’s a challenge to find food he’s willing to eat.

A Mt. Vesuvius of a boil grew in his mouth and is huge today.

Wow, the side effects didn’t let up & hammered M the whole week.  He was weaker, more fatigued, and in more pain than I have ever seen him.

We went to see Dr. K and he seemed shocked at how bad M was. He’s lowering the dose next treatment by 10%.

M felt pretty good when he woke up, a little pain but not too bad.

He went for his shot at 3. That night he began to describe horrible pain from inside his bones.

M’s first chemo day, he had to be there at 8:15 am and I picked him up at 5 pm…

He didn’t have much to say about it.

Before actually starting chemotherapy M had to go in for a training session where he learned what to expect,  where to go, etc. 

Chemo will be every three weeks, Carboplatin, Paclitaxel, and Avastin (bevacizumab). Then, he’ll go in the day after for a shot of Neulasta (pegfilgrastim), he meets with Dr. K the week after chemo and gets blood work, and the third week he just gets bloodwork.

M’s never had so many appointments.  I put a white board up on the refrigerator.

So, M went to meet with Dr. K, the oncologist he met with in the hospital. He was supposed to conference me in on speaker phone so I could hear what was going on but he didn’t.  He didn’t remember the specifics of any part of the visit except chemotherapy will start after the 4th of July.