man must hope

today is wednesday. i've got two more days of chemo this week, and then i get a two week break. so far, this chemotherapy has been pretty easy. it has got me a little tired though. my blood counts are still really good, so i think it is mostly from not getting quite enough sleep. i remedied that with a two hour nap after my session today. my stomach isn't doing so great these last couple of days; i'm still eating pretty good, but getting some stomach cramps and stuff every now and then. nothing too bad. the tumor continues to shrink, which is really encouraging. i'm hoping that this is the regiment that does my cancer in. here's to hoping.

pray for good news

starting to feel the side effects they said would come with this chemo. nothing too bad though. i go back in tomorrow, and have a follow up with the doctor, followed by some more chemo. hopefully, i'll have more answers than questions after he sees me again.

my church had a special fast for me today. it feels good to have that many people praying for you. everyone is so nice to me, really do all that they can to watch out for me. i know that i am going to end up being cured of this, i just don't know how or when exactly. i guess that is part of the test. i am hoping to go to work tomorrow after my treatment. i'll let you know how it goes.

another week down

finished up this week of chemo today. i'm pretty sure it's working, the pain in my shoulder is virtually gone. before, i was on prescription pain killers basically 24/7, which made it pretty hard to function normally. well, the latter half of this week i have been pain killer free with no pain. this is similar to what happened with my first chemo treatments, which shrunk my tumor quite a bit. so that's good news. it also leaves hope that i can get back to a somewhat normal life, at least going to work and making a little money to pay my bills. i'll give it the weekend and we'll see what happens next week. it's been cold and rainy here, with the seasons changing. i think combining that with this new plan from my doctor has had a pretty negative effect on my spirits. but i'm starting to feel better, even if the weather stays cold and clammy.

how close to dead can we get?

more new things at the doctor today. it seems my bone marrow is most likely clear, but the doctor still thinks that i've got other spots where the cancer has spread, as shown by the PET scan i had last week. so they started me up on some different chemo today, to see if the tumor is still responsive to chemo. assuming it is, they are planning on doing a bone marrow transplant procedure. what they will do is remove some of my bone marrow, then give me a super high dose of chemo to kill all the cancer, and then once i recover from that, put my bone marrow back in. if this is the route we take, it sounds like i'll be in the hospital for a while. it is also pretty risky, as this high dose of chemo wrecks my immune system and has massive side effects on my body. but if it kills the cancer, i am all for it.

my original rounds of chemo didn't have too many side effects. sure, it killed my red and white blood cells, making me vulnerable as well as very tired. i also lost a lot of hair on different parts of my body, and my skin became pretty sensitive. i didn't, however, throw up, or have much naseau at all, and i was able to eat pretty good still. while i didn't throw up, i did have some rough days/weeks on the toilet, and had more than one stomach ache. i slept good though, and things went pretty easy. this second round of chemo is a little lighter duty than the first. after one day of treatment, i really don't even feel like i had chemo today. maybe it'll catch up to me after the two weeks of every day treatments they are planning for me, we will see.

they also did another biopsy on the shoulder today, which involves a big needle that has a little grabber inside of it that they stuck in my shoulder about four times. they numb it, so it doesn't hurt too bad at the time. but when that shot wears off...boy am i glad for my oxycotton prescription.

No new is Good News

well, i had finished up my sixth treatment out of fourteen. at this point i was supposed to have surgery to remove the tumor. we had everything set up for this wednesday, but i've been pretty sick the last couple of weeks. a lot of my symptoms prior to being diagnosed with cancer had come back, such as night sweats, spiking fevers, and sever pain in my shoulder. so the doctor checked me out, and it looks like the tumor has been growing again. so, things are kind of up in the air right now(a state that is becoming more and more normal for things). i'm going in tomorrow, probably to start chemo again, only this time under a different regiment. though my initial round of chemo was doing a good job of shrinking the tumor, the effect was obviously not a lasting one, so they are going to try something different. they are also concernced that it has spread, which, as i've understood it, has always been the worst thing that could happen. so i'm kind of scared. i've never really felt so much like dying might be in the possibilities of my near future. i don't think that's really the case, but it's hard not to consider from time to time. it's also pretty frustrating to think i i basically have to start my chemo over. but it is better than this shoulder pain, that is for sure.