Kris, Dave and the Lumps: Round #3, Chemo #6, followup

2009-Nov-26, Thursday, Thanksgiving
Slept in, pretty much on purpose. When we got up Kris started to work on
the Apple pie. In the process she realized that she hadn't gotten enough
apples and sent me off to get 2 more Braeburns for the stuffing. When I
got back, she was laying on the couch with a look of abject misery on her
face. I asked after what was wrong and she said that she had a migraine.
Now, for the record, Kris doesn't get migraines save when they are
chemically induced. She would get them with Citoxin, and she got one with
the initial dose (double) of the anti-viral medication she was prescribed
for shingles. She took Tylenol (she's not allowed aspirin due to the blood
thinners) and that did nothing. That meant she had to wait until the
Tylenol was out of her system before she could take one of her Darvocet
since Darvocet also has Tylenol in it (and for those that don't know,
Tylenol is quite hard on the liver, so, doubling up is not a good thing).
She finally went up to bed and lay down in the dark for quite some time. I
managed to cook the bird and get dinner done. About the time she was able
to take the Darvocet, dinner was ready and she was feeling better though
certainly not 100%. Due to the nausea associated with the migraines pain,
she was barely able to eat dinner. She did tolerate the pie better than
the rest of the food.

2009-Nov-27, Friday
Much better today. No migraine and plenty of energy, so, things seem to
have sorted themselves out.

Kris, Dave and the Lumps: Round 3, Chemo #5

2009-Nov-20 Friday
Infusion day. Kris' I&R suggested another adjustment of her blood
thinners. Her other blood work looks good. She's still got some
sensitivity in her finger tips but the Dr thinks everything is in keeping
with the Chemo, and we tend to agree. For the record, this is MUCH better
than Xeloda (for Kris)!

2009-Nov-21 Saturday
Kris is feeling a bit run down already. Not yet achy or in pain but just
not enough energy for everything, though she managed to keep plugging along
through everything we wanted to do.

2009-Nov-22 Sunday
More run down though up in spirits and up and about.

2009-Nov-23 Monday
Kris stayed in bed late today to wait for the pain killers to kick in
before she would brave the day. Other than the pain, she's doing well and
her spirits are up.

I need to insert a note to Carl. You will be missed and our thoughts are
with Grace and the rest of the Sato crew.

Kris, Dave and the Lumps: Round 3, Chemo #4

2009-Nov-6, Friday
The infusion went without incident... which includes no giggling and
rolling around on the floor looking for cards, much to the nurses relief.

2009-Nov-7, Saturday
Kris is already feeling the effects of the Chemotherapy. Mostly just a
little run down, nothing major.

2009-Nov-8, Sunday
Kris is more run down and achy. She took a pain killer this night to go to
sleep. Things are definitely occurring earlier in the cycle.

2009-Nov-10, Tuesday
Kris is pretty much back to normal. Tastes are back to normal and the
achiness is pretty much gone.

Only one more round to go then we cut back from 2 drugs to one. I'll nail
down which drug we are finished with in the next update.

Kris, Dave and the Lumps: Round 3, Chemo #3, followup

2009-Oct-11 Sunday
Kris is... tired. She's also in enough pain that she decided to take a Darvocet before going to bed. That said, she was resting peacefully when I trundled off to work.

Kris, Dave and the Lumps: Round 3, Chemo #3

2009-Oct-9 Friday
Went down to Boulder, by way of the Original Pancake House, for chemotherapy. We also stopped by the book store to pick up some Sudoku books. Ours were getting old and we've made friends with a gal, I think her name is Edina, who was interested in Sudoku but we didn't have anything but my iTouch to demonstrate/teach it on and she does not like the iTouch interface.
When we got there I asked if it was ok if I stuck around. I caught some weird sort of cold about the time of the last Chemotherapy session. Just a tickle in the back of my nose, then a bonafide sore throat but, it wasn't very sore at all. Finally it moved back into my sinuses as 'pressure' but not true blockage. Now it's migrated into my chest for vacation and apparently it's enjoying the place 'cause I can't seem to shake it. No fever, no chills, no aches, nothing but this 'pressure' and a cough for trying to clear my lungs. I've been very concerned about passing this to Kris and thus have gone well above and beyond the call of duty trying to NOT spread it. Kris did complain about a mildly sore throat but she must've beaten it back since she got no other symptoms
So, we headed back to the infusion room where they gave her the anti-nausea medicine in a drip to avoid giving her nausea like it did last time. Yes, that is the definition of Irony. We settled in and played Cribbage throughout the day. Unlike normal, we managed to spill the cards twice and the cribbage board three times... this is a record for us! The most spectacular of which happened when Kris dropped a card down in her chart... now these are comfortable chairs but, they are on the cheap so the space between the arm and cushion goes straight through. We've dropped cards down that way several times and the cards have always appeared on the floor below that side of the chair. Imagine our surprise when she dropped and ace and nothing showed up! I got down on the floor to look as close as I could... no card. While I wasn't watching, Kris, IV tube and all, got down on the floor to look with me. I stood up, saw her craning her neck laying on the ground with an IV tube reaching up to the IV pump and said 'something is wrong with the picture of you laying on the ground searching for cards while getting Chemotherapy.' Just at that point, one of the nurses walked up with a panicked look at which point Kris broke out into peels of laughter at the situation! So, we all had a good laugh (including the other patients).
The short of it is that the infusion was uneventful. Now we have to weather the next 4 days of achiness and pain as the drugs work their magic.

Kris, Dave and the Lumps: Round three, Chemo #2

2009-Sep-17, Thursday
Kris' scalp/hair has been more and more irritated as time goes on. We discussed cutting her hair off in the near future, sometime fairly soon after Chemo Friday.

2009-Sep-18, Friday
Chemo. Appointment is 1045 and will take about 6 hours, so we got breakfast at the Original Pancake House then headed out to the clinic. Kris' I & R is 2.4 which is perfect so we're leaving her Warfarin dosage alone. Met an interesting soul at the clinic during infusion who likes Irish folk, as well as other more eclectic music, as much as we do. One point of note is that the nurse 'pushed' one of the anti-nausea drugs rather than administering it by drip. Ironically this has the effect of making Kris quite nauseous as it was too rapid a delivery. Other than this, things went quite a bit better this time than last time.

2009-Sep-19, Saturday
Kris decided that we'd do the buzz today. This time we handled it ourselves. Took us a bit to get our clippers to work the way we wanted, and we decided to go so far as to shave but, in the end everything looks great! Yes, that's right, I have no problems at all with bald women. :)

2009-Sep-20, Sunday
Towards the afternoon, Kris began feeling a bit run down. This is early but in keeping with normal Chemo reactions.

2009-Sep-21, Monday
Kris is still run down and starting to feel achy. Enough that she waited long enough to take the Darvocet she has for pain. Other than this her spirit is up and she even worked a bit today. Note: I am very appreciative of her work support structure for helping her through times like these. I can't go into detail but her manager, among others, have done a lot to help Kris work through this with minimal stress and I wanted to say thank you to those co-workers for doing so.

Kris, Dave and the Lumps: Round 3, Followup with Dr. Moran for Chemo #1

2009-Sep-8, Tuesday
Met with Dr. Moran. We catalogued the issues we saw with the first round of Chemo: Headache and tiredness the day of, Achy (pain) and run down 3-5 days later, buzzing in fingertips, white tongue 2 days later (Kris noticed this because she had an odd taste in her mouth, when she looked in the mirror, her tongue was sort of 'white' and she was able to brush off what was apparently dead skin), and most recently some minor sores on her tongue. For the sores he gave us a prescription for a mouth wash that helps with them. He said that for the achiness 3-5 days after the infusion, it was ok for her to take the Darvocet she was prescribed for pain after surgery. The rest is pretty much expected or understood (the problems the day of we think were just heat from sitting directly in the sunlight from the window during the 6 hour infusion). Kris' I&R was 3.0 today after they adjusted the dose to 3.5 mg of Warfarin each day. He wants her to go back to 3 mg each day to try and titrate it back to 2-ish (it was 1.4 the last time). Long and short is that things are proceeding nicely, or at least 'as expected' and we will just keep on keeping on.