A day in the life.....

First of all, an update on the visit with the orthopedic Dr.: No surgery right now. He thought it was more important to tackle the chemo and beat the cancer and get healthy that way and not do the shoulder surgery until after chemo is finished. BUT he did give him another cortisone shot, and prescribed physical therapy.

Mark had a loooooooong day today! At 7:30 am he was at the physical therapist. That lasted until about 9:00. His shoulder felt REALLY good afterward (for about an hour). Then Kristi picked him up and drove him to Wenatchee for his 10:30 appointment time. He checked in at 10:30, the waiting room was the fullest he'd ever seen it! There was a little bit of a wait, and then they called him back and drew his blood and sent it to the lab for testing (blood cell counts, anti-bodies, checking all that good stuff). Then back to the waiting room. It was just before 12:00 and he was called back to visit with the oncology doctor. All his blood results looked good so he decided to start chemo today. Back to the waiting room for a pain pill and turkey sandwich from the bistro downstairs. Then there was a long wait until they were ready for his chemo treatment. About 12:30 they got him a chair (a nice reclining one) in the chemo room and got him set up with a blanket and cranberry juice.

First they hooked him up to sugar water and some anti-nausea medicine (they wanted the anti-nausea meds in him before they put the chemo drugs in him). They let that start for about an hour and then they hooked up the chemo drugs. Then it was all waiting for the medicine to slowly drip into his system. He did get a chance to watch a few episodes of some TV shows from Kristi's Ipod, and catch a nap or two. ;) at 4:30 they started to flush his port (makes sure all the medicine is in his system and cleans the port so there's less chance of infection) and gave him 'dishcharge' papers with instructions on how and when to take 2 new prescriptions (both for anti-nausea). He was able to leave at 4:45 (so that makes it a total of more than 6 hours at the doctor's office today).

Then to Costco to pick up the prescriptions, and finally home. He took one of his anti-nausea pills right away (he wasn't feeling very well). Mark got home around 6:30 this evening and was excited for his tomato soup and grilled cheese dinner.

One of the interesting side effects of this round of chemo drugs (that he didn't experience with the first round) is that it makes him very sensitive to cold. They advised him to wear gloves if he needed to get anything out of the freezer, and to cover his mouth with a bandanna or scarf if he was walking outside in freezing temperatures. He's not to eat or drink anything colder than room temperature for the first 3-5 days after this chemo treatment either. The sudden shock to his throat could cause muscle spasms. He did mention that just walking from the doctor's office to car the cold air made his hands and tongue feel weird and tingly.

Round 2

Visited with the chemo doctor yesterday. The 28th is the day round 2 of chemo is set to start. In the mean time.....visit with the orthopedic doctor will be wednesday to see if surgery is in the near future to fix Mark's shoulder injury.