Pandemichemotoe

Bottom line: I’m still alive. Chemo is hard. Please continue to pray.

 

It’s been awhile since I have posted anything. It’s taken me almost 2 months to come up with anything noteworthy to report. I even had to go to the trouble of messing up my toe again just so I could make this post more interesting.

The pandemic

So far we are unaffected. I have a nice spreadsheet of all reported cases from around the world because I like data and spreadsheets. I’ve been working from home for over 7 years now and we’ve been homeschooling for roughly the same amount of time. We are all quite used to being together all the time.

I am one of those people with an underlying health condition due to my immune system trying to heal me from the havoc of chemotherapy every two weeks. If you have a little extra prayer time after you have prayed for the people who have COVID-19 and after you have prayed for all the nursing home residents, you could pray for a little protection for us immunocompromised folks.

Chemotherapy

I do not like chemotherapy.  My treatment is considered “essential” so I still get to go to the hospital every other week for my dose of poison. I get to wear a mask now at the hospital. I didn’t like the ones they gave me so my mother made me a Mario one.

To comply with social distancing the hospital removed half of all the chemo chairs in the room so it’s really nice and spacious now. The downside is that no visitors are allowed. As usual, I bring my laptop and I get to work in peace and quiet for 5 hours or so.

As someone who was hospitalized for 15 days last November, I especially feel for all the patients in the hospital that can’t receive visitors right now. Staying in the hospital is bad enough but I can’t imagine being stuck in there without your family or friends being able to visit. Please pray for all the hospital patients.

My chemo treatments have still been tolerable, although I have been extra nauseous during the past few. I’ve been dry heaving multiple times on day 1, 2 and 3 and even managed to actually vomit a few times now. This is different from last year. I am trying some new nausea pills this time, so please pray they do the trick.

It’s been very difficult to eat or even drink anything on the weekends I have chemo. I traded in my water for apple juice which has helped me drink more fluids. I don’t even bother trying to eat because my appetite is non-existent. This only lasts until Monday, Day 3, when I feel about 95% like myself. By Wednesday, I am back to 100%. My current post-chemo craving is a Mango Pineapple smoothie from McDonald’s. I’ve been having one every time after we return home from my Day 3 hyperthermia session.

On my last two chemo treatments I managed to drop over 10 pounds from Thursday night to Monday morning. I gained most of it back over the following week, but I thought 10 pounds in 3 days was impressive (or perhaps disturbing would be a better word). There has got to be a weight-loss product idea in there somewhere…

My next chemotherapy treatment is booked for May 15. I can’t remember how many more I am to have but there should be a CT scan coming up soon.

My rash is still quite present. It’s on every area of my body except my feet. I am taking antibiotics and have a few skin creams to help keep it at bay.

When I am not on chemo I still feel great.

Leanne and I are old pros at ostomy care now. I need her help due to my lack of depth perception. She’s better with stickers and scissors anyway. I was hoping to have my ostomy reversed soon but that is a non-essential procedure so I’m stuck with my bag for awhile longer.

My dear wife is now an expert at giving me my Grastofil injections. All the post-surgery daily anti-blood-clot injections must have helped build her confidence, because Leanne is now an expert at stabbing me. She was worried about hurting me in the beginning, which actually made it hurt worse. Now she doesn’t hesitate, she just jabs that needle in my leg and we’re done in no time. The injections are merely a slight distraction from our conversation.

On my last visit to the oncologist my white blood cell count was so high that he told me to do fewer Grastofil injections. Instead of 7, we are now doing 6 per treatment and will likely be going down to 5. This would be much more significant if we had to pay out-of-pocket for these needles that cost $140 each, but the manufacturer and Trillium are still footing the bill. (Thank you all for paying your taxes.)

My toe

Remember my ingrown toenail I had back in August? Well it came back. I was SUPER careful, I was too scared to cut my toenail at all, but it still came back. I didn’t let it get as infected as last time though before going to my family doctor. He had his colleague, a nice young doctor who couldn’t have been more than a year or so older than Harry, do a different procedure which essentially removed the overgrown skin from the sides of my toe.

This Vandenbos procedure has a longer recovery time than my last toe fix in the ER (6-8 weeks vs. 1 week). As of yesterday, Tuesday, it will be 2 weeks since I had it done. I still have to soak my toe 3 times per day for 4-6 more weeks. The pain isn’t too bad but much worse than in August. I have some neat photos but Leanne won’t let me post them.

If there is still room left on your prayer list, I suppose my poor toe could use some prayer as well, although I’d still prefer you pray that God will heal me from the cancer.

My next post will likely feature something regarding a CT scan unless something else exciting happens to me in the meantime. You know I still have 9 toes that aren’t currently ingrown…