Friday, August 23, 2019

Back on Chemo

They finally restarted my chemo on Wednesday (8/21). My last chemo was back before out ill-fated trip to the Baltic and my bout of appendicitis,surgery, etc. This is good. Let's hope it works.

Recall that I had had only two cycles of this new experimental treatment before the "short" break for my trip. At that time, the treatment did not knock the cancer back but seemed to hold it in place. That was not so bad given that the cancer seemed to knocked back by the previous treatment and at least at that time was not coming back too quickly. Most likely, the cancer has come back during my months of non-treatment. Time will tell what the numbers say and more time will tell how well the treatments are working.

I had hoped to restart the chemo last week, but they seemed surprised that I had not recovered more quickly, even though we had made my status very clear several times over the previous several weeks. I actually visited two doctors during each of my last two visits to DFCI. One of them decided that I might have some type of pneumonia that did not show up on x-rays or respond to antibiotics. She gave me a foul tasting goo that I have to take twice a day. In case it was not this pneumonia thing and due to my running a slight fever, my oncologist had me sit for a super-powerful IV drip and prescribed a 10 day course of gigantic antibiotic pills. It looked like taking them would require a shoe-horn, but fortunately I have had not trouble getting them down.

So, over the last week, my temperature, taken daily, seems to be normal or below and my appetite is back. (Can you imagine me with no appetite?) I have actually managed to regain one of the 25 lost pounds - few if any which seem to have come off my middle. I am still a bit draggy, but I manage most days without a nap. People tell me that I look good but I am still waiting for them to start saying that I am good looking.



We have had visitors to NH over the last two weekends and more coming this weekend. They have been a lot of fun and having people around keeps me moving. I think is good for my recovery. We actually got the boat uncovered last weekend and took it out which was an accomplishment.

That's all for now. I will post another update when we know more.