Hello, and welcome. I don’t think I have ever started a post this way, but today, I am filled with new hope and a great deal of faith. In my last post, I was hurt, angered and to be honest, confused. I was confused at the lack of urgency in the face of metastatic cancer. I will not reflect on this again. It was a lesson learned that you must remain vigilant and knowledgeable in your own affliction…because nobody cares about your health more than you. I had become complacent because I was feeling good. It happens to us all. We just want to live and be happy in life. My friend Mart Ruusma suffers from cancer also, and he too had become complacent. His reply on my last post reminded me that I don’t need to beat myself up over it. It happens. Accept it, learn from it, and yes, Just Keep Moving.
So on to my latest appointment. Sonja and I were both very pleased and excited about meeting with Dr. Jose Pecheco at CU Cancer Center at Anschutz. This place reminds me a lot of IU Simon Cancer Center. They are both learning hospitals, they are both efficient in their appointments, and they are both research heavy. We like it here and we liked the blunt honesty and the well thought out plan of attack from where we are now. So on the 27th of January, I started a new chemotherapy treatment, that will also include an immunotherapy treatment. I think Sonja and I both were pretty happy about where we are now!
So this is the section of the update that might be boring if it isn’t happening to you. But this is where the fight happens. This would be the trenches, I guess. It is amazing how similar CU is to IU. I know it is easy to glance at the name and know it is a University and therefore a teaching hospital, but it is more than that. It is the professionalism, the efficiency in how they schedule appointments and take care of business. I felt at home in a way that is comforting, but at the same time knowing I am here to pump a cocktail of poison into my body with the hope that it slows the progression of the disease. And I am good with that for now. I have been asked why I don’t want to get rid of all of the tumors. I do, oh man, I wish it would take it all, but I have to be realistic about my treatments. There is no cure. At least right now. So I work with what I have, and that is my attitude towards the disease. My state of mind in how we approach this treatment. Fighting cancer is a team effort. These incredibly smart and talented staff of doctors and nurses do their thing, and I just have to show up. But showing up doesn’t mean just physically being there. Showing up means you are in the moment both physically and mentally. It means you are asking the right questions, you are doing what the doctors and nurses are asking you to do, and you are there in every possible way.
Once I get to the Oncology floor and they get me a room, I get into a recliner and Sonja has a nice comfortable chair. If you have never seen one of these rooms, you can get an idea of what they look like by watching a movie like 50/50 (one of my favorites). The nurse, accesses my power port (see attached pic of what the port is and how it is routed to your heart:
Once I am accessed, it is showtime. The first thing the nurse does is give me a combination of drugs which are, Dexamethasone in combination with just normal saline and Aloxi, to curb the effects of nausea and vomiting. I get a slow drip (10 mg) of the Dexamethasone and it has worked very well. I have been nauseas, but no vomiting. I’ll take it. I have told Sonja many times, I think the nausea and vomiting is almost worse than the pain…almost.
The next thing the nurse gave me was another anti nausea drug called Emend in which I received 150 mg, also a slow drip through the powerport. I then moved on to the Carboplatin. This is the actual chemotherapy drug that kills the bad cancer cells…and also the good cells with it. I received 10 mg/mL through the powerport. I finished the day’s treatment with another chemotherapy drug called Etoposide. This is another cell killer. The last two drugs have the typical side effects that most of us have heard of; hair loss, white and red blood cell loss, weight loss, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, pain and sores in the mouth, loss of taste, etc. Fun stuff, but necessary to stop the abnormal cell growth and most importantly…buy me some time until the clinical trials can open back up. I did almost the same treatment for the next two days, but only taking the Dexamethasone, Carboplatin, and Etoposide. That is it for now. I will go back in three weeks and repeat the process.
I hope I didn’t lose most of you with boredom, but I feel like it is necessary to detail the treatment as I have received it. I am also open to feedback from everyone, and anyone in the medical community, if I have gotten something wrong, please let me know. This is the way I remember the treatment. I expect the next couple of days to be interesting in regard to the side effects. Some people say it gets worse in the few days after treatment, but we will see.
I am also ready to begin posting my cycling workouts, weight training, nutrition, and so on. I am not sure how I will post this information yet, but there are quite a few ways to do this. I will more than likely, post a link to my Strava, MyFitnessPal, Zwift, the different sites are almost endless anymore. I don’t know if anyone reading followed John Stone Fitness, but that is the perfect model of how a site should run. As of right now, the ride in France is still on, but has been pushed back to September to give time for the pandemic to fade out…again.
Thanks again for reading my posts as I document this journey. Everyone’s support is very much appreciated and needed. It is amazing how unloading all of the feelings, fear, anxiety, and even laughter and love in the face of a disease like cancer can seem so therapeutic. I cherish you all. Until the next post, Just Keep Moving!
KG