The routine sets in (#14)

Like a hamster on a treadmill

After the cyberknife experience, things begin to move a bit more slowly.  The following week, I am back at the START Center for a financial discussion (no problems) and to determine whether I need a mediport for the continuing series of chemo drips.  I do not; the veins are good.  So, a few weeks ago,  Susan and I go in for the first round of chemotherapy.

This, then, is the cancer ward.  Patients sit in recliners in a large room with teams of attending nurses and technicians.  Each patient is attached to an IV.  Some of the women who have lost their hair wear caps and knitted hats; others wear wigs.  A few of the men have obviously shaved their heads and taken to polishing the baldness.  I continue to have hair.

Wonder of wonders: the quite comfortable ward also has WiFi.  I am able to check email and surf the web from my iPad.  Susan is there for the first treatment just in case I need to be driven home, but the aftereffects on the day of chemo are quite mild.  She stays home subsequently.   

The Routine

I drive to the START Center in my little Mazda MX-5 with the top down, climb the stairs to the “treatment room” (not the “Cancer Ward,” I am informed).  I weigh myself (I have lost 20 pounds, most of that deliberately) and sir down in a recliner to wait for Maggie, my nurse, to plug me in.  Two hours later, the IV is disconnected and I walk downstairs.  The temperature is now at about 100 degrees; so, I put the top up and drive to work.  It has all become a routine.

Days after chemo

The day after chemo is always a good day.  I feel normal.  I go to work and am not tired.  The day after that, I am depleted.  I stay home, lie on the couch, read crap.  I don't feel up to poetry though I do enjoy reading brief segments from a Gray Snyder book my friend Will Hochman sent to me.  I feel heavy, not hungry.  My eyes burn (from the cyberknife treatment, I think, and not from the chemo); Doc Onc2, the man who wielded the cyberknife had warned me about that.  Food no longer tastes good.  The next day, I start to feel a bit better, but not good enough to go to work unless something important is happening.  The following day, I feel pretty good and go to work.

Just a quick aside:  I have, while all this has been going on, stopped reading manuscripts for Pecan Grove Press.  I have a large stock of accepted manuscripts and plan to complete all of those.  After that, assuming I feel up to it, I will start reading again.  I have managed to get a number of books out while going through the treatments:  books by David Starkey, Scott Wiggerman, Jessy Randall and Daniel Shapiro (at the printer), and Lisa Siedlarz (she has her proofs from the printer now).  More are in process.  But I simply cannot read new manuscripts at this time. I announced this on the press's website just above the link to the submission manager.  Sicne tnhen, I have received ten submissions

The chemococktails I am taking: 

Alimta:  the trade name of the generic drug Pemetrexed

and

Carboplatin:  also used for other forms of cancer

I get both on each visit plus flushing agents dripped through the IV.  I also have a two-page list of common side effects.  If my temperature goes above 100.4 degrees, I am supposed to call the doctor.

This is all terribly technical.  What happens is that they put gunk into my veins.  The gunk attacks virtually all cells in my body:  cancerous and non-cancerous.  I take other medicines to promote the development of white and red blood cells and platelets.  The good cells are supposed to win the war.

And oh, yes, I have started to lose hair.  It’s sort of like more advanced male pattern baldness than I already had, but I don’t think I’m going to lose all of it.  I feel good.  I’ll be playing golf on Thursday morning at Silverhorn.  I’m editing books and directing the library.  Both Doc Oncs continue to say the prognosis is good.

It’ll be a couple of weeks before I continue this.  I’ll still be doing chemo, but it’s all going to be just like this.   

I’ll get back to the blog after the next MRIs.

Thanks for reading.