Round 2

To start off with this week’s post, it has been about a week since I went with the  Kojak look. I have learned a few things I was never aware of before.

• I do not need to put gel in my hair. Only made that mistake once, on the first day, but still need to remember this each time I do my morning routine.
• I have “get up and go” hair. I still catch myself checking it out to see if it looks good even though it did not change since the last time I checked it.
• My head is very sensitive to everything. I can feel the cold air/wind so I need a hat most of the time. Sun is very hot and can burn easily so I need sunscreen and/or a hat too.
• I feel the cold of my leather chair and the heat of my pillow.
• I am still shocked every time I see myself in the mirror.
• So far, I have received nothing but positive feedback on the new look. Not sure if they are just being nice or are truly genuine. Either way, it is the look I have now and am sticking with it for a while.
• Since I am now shaving my head, I no longer need to shave my face. That is my rule and I am sticking to it (unless the chemo makes the beard patchy and ugly then it has to go.)

Round 2 of chemo happened on Tuesday. It all went smoothly. Mary Ann was able to join and stay for the entire treatment this time and she did not puke once. It did not start smoothly though. As I have a standing order for blood work, I need to go the day before each treatment so that they have the most recent results. The problem is where I go to get the blood drawn. It is a small medical clinic that I can quickly get through because there are so few people, hence the reason for going there. I was able to get everything done on Monday in about ten minutes. The other clinic in Orleans takes somewhere between an hour or more to get through. Because this clinic is so small, it takes time for their lab to process the results. They told me in the past it takes between 2-5 days for the doctor to get results. I had mentioned this to my doctor’s nurse the last time I saw her and she said to go early in the morning so that it could be sent out with the first shipment. I did do this but it did not help as the hospital did not have the results when I arrived on Tuesday. The nurse had also suggested to tell them that it was for my chemo to see if this could help rush it. Again, no dice! Since the original order did not have “rush” on it, there was nothing that the lab or the clinic could do to speed up the results. All this caused some confusion and additional work for the intake nurses at the hospital as they tried to get the results from the lab faxed over. This may have slowed our process to start the treatment by about an hour. My cute nurse who was administering my treatment also said that they were running late in her area. Either way, my 4 hour treatment turned into 5h.

As I mentioned, the nurse was cute but having MA around made it hard to flirt with her. I still found a way to get some sexual innuendos in regardless. The actual administering of the drugs did only take 4h. It was enough time for MA and I to watch 3 episodes of Suns of Anarchy. One of MA’s clients lent us the box set as we had not seen the series yet. I was in good enough shape after the treatment to drive home. MA’s leg is still hurting but is getting better. The problem though is that the hospital is not setup for her to really have her leg up to help keep the pain and swelling down while she sits and waits for me to finish the treatment. So, it was better for me to drive home.

Post treatment has been smooth this time, more or less. No diarrhea but still having troubles sleeping. I was more tired after this round when I got home but I could not really sleep. I believe that the R-CHOP therapy is causing it. The prednisone, the “P” in R-CHOP, is a big factor in this. I was told when I began this therapy that it was a stimulant and needed to be taken in the morning as it can keep you up at night. It is the only drug in the cocktail that is taken orally (all the others are given though IV) and is taken over 7 days. I believe that it is interfering with my sleep and nap cycles and, as a result, is making me feel tired most of the day while also feeling a bit wired at the same time.

Another thing I am noticing is that I can feel my heart. It is hard to describe the feeling. It is not a pain but more of an awareness. I have had this in the past, prior to being diagnosed with cancer, and when I check my blood pressure it is usually low for me but in the normal range. My thought is that I am feeling the difference in pressure that is not “normal” to me so I am sensitive to it.

I am feeling a lot better today. I was able to take the dog for a long walk, the first time since I was off but something I had been meaning to do from the beginning. I plan on playing hockey tonight and go to band practice tomorrow so I am still keeping up with my activities even with all that is going on with me.

If you are a bit squeamish, you may want to skip this next paragraph as I am going to talk about some bodily functions. One thing I have noticed in the last couple of weeks is that I have had no abdominal pains. In recent months, I had noticed that I could hear a lot of noise coming from my belly. There were these interesting sounds of fluids rushing around in my intestines. I believe it was due to the tumor in my colon and surrounding areas constricting the space for them to flow. Now that the tumours have been reduced I do not hear them anymore. This is a pleasant side effect of the treatment as it was more noticeable at night and were loud enough to keep MA awake and it could sometimes shake the bed! I also tested my gut on wings last week with no sides effects. Yay! This could mean that I may be able to have my beloved wings again. As we are not currently playing hockey at our usual rink tonight and for the next couple of weeks, I will not be able to test this theory fully yet but when the time comes, I will be ready to experiment again. This last time, I did have the wings with other food and had them for dinner instead of a very late snack. Both these points could be a factor in how my body reacts and if I do get pains. For these reasons, it will be important for me to run the tests when we switch back to our old arena and go to our favorite bar for wings and beer (though I have been skipping the beer for now).

Small update on the family. Gen is still going to Tennessee in 4 wks. We found out this week that the school and school board are going to help out with the funding a lot more than originally thought. Also, given how late they were to book plane tickets to go down, it was going to be too much money and they could not get the right flights or enough seats to fly so instead they are taking a 15h bus ride to get there along with 4 other schools wits 29 people on the bus. Glad I am not going now! Her portion of the trip will be about $300 and a lot of that may be collected through fundraising that they are doing. They plan on having two pizza lunches at school where anyone in the school can buy pizza and plan on selling popcorn at a movie night as well. So this means that all of you may be off the hook for sponsorship. On the flip side, Cassy and Isa will be going to Hamilton mid-May for a school volleyball tournament. The money I will be saving on Gen will now go to support this trip. It never seems to end! Oh well, so long as they are healthy, have fun and appreciate the experiences they are getting. I think that MA and I are due for a trip to Las Vegas soon. Anybody want to come? I know that I have 4 friends on call waiting for us to give a date on when to start packing.

PS. If you want to read my last piece of work I did before I took my time off, this was published today.

Why is 4K important for machine vision.

https://www.framos.com/news-events/news/item/single/four-key-points-about-4k-introducing-sonys-compact-block-camera-for-professional-imaging-applications/