He’s doing pretty well. Slept late. Worked part of the day. Did some chores around the house while I ran errands and he ate dinner. He keeps on top of his nausea meds and fluids.
It’s always a week by week thing though- hoping labs are good and you can have the next treatment.
It’s great to hear he’s doing well, living day to day life as near to normal as possible.
How are you doing?
We are good, thank you! Dean finished cycle 2 and we are halfway done with his neoadjuvant chemo! He did well with the Neulasta and I administered the injection at home (giving myself Depo and injecting the horses with Adequan comes in handy). Tomorrow he will be starting on the upswing and this next week is a rest week and we will hopefully get out to do something.
I have felt more positive and more at peace being in a routine and knowing his doctors are optimistic.
Having a routine and knowing what to expect is very, very helpful. In the beginning, the initial fear of the unknown I think is almost worse than the actual procedures themselves.
Second half of chemo starts tomorrow. I haven’t had the nervous sick feeling for a while but it’s back. My biggest fear is “is it working??” He was supposed to get a full 2 weeks in between rest week and staring a new cycle. He gets 12 days instead. It doesn’t seem like much but his RBC needs to rebound (white is high due to Neulasta) and I can tell the cumulative effects are making the rebound period take longer.
I’m not sure if he will be up for working the rest of the week, we’ll see.
The tiring effects of chemo are…for lack of a better word…cumulative, so he may be more tired as it goes on. I’m glad his white count is responding.
All labs were good today and oncologist was really happy with his progress. His weight has been stable and his side effects well controlled. He hasn’t lost his hair so that’s an added benefit. I don’t look at him and think “cancer”, I just see my husband 
Great news!
That is wonderful news! I’m glad he seems to be tolerating it well. As others also said the effects seem to be cumulative as you travel down this journey, but just wait and cross that bridge when you come to it. Everybody’s body responds differently.
I asked the oncologist and nurse navigator about if there are cumulative effects and they both said “not really”. Maybe it’s in how this particular chemo metabolizes in the body? The regimen is gemcidabine/cisplatin split dose.
That would be wonderful if that were the case, and I sure hope that is the case. My chemo for Hodgkin’s was definitely cumulative…both in the level of exhaustion and joint pain,
It’s wonderful to read that he’s doing as well as one could possibly hope for, all things considered.
Cycle 3 is done! 1 more to go. Last chemo is 8/27. Moving closer to surgery and urological surgical oncologist called him yesterday to touch base. Have to see him in near future and decide on a urinary diversion soon. Yikes
How is your husband doing with the recent round of chemo? Hope he’s feeling OK, or at least as OK as he can be under the circumstances. Do you feel more in control of what’s happening?
Jingles and hugs,
Rebecca
He’s actually been handling it like a champ. He stopped for chicken strips on the way home yesterday 
He hasn’t exactly taken to the healthy diet much lol. But he’s eating. Just some nausea that’s well controlled and fatigue. He won’t stop working though. I wish he’d take some pto days but he’s a hard one to keep down.
I do feel better but not necessarily in control. Learning to not be in control is a tough thing. This is one part of the journey- then PET scan will set off nerves, then a major surgery. There’s still more to come. I feel like I can face anything so long as I have him though.
I am guessing he feels very much the same… he can face anything with you by his side.
The best advice I got when going thru chemo was to keep my head where my feet were.
My dad was diagnosed with bladder cancer in probably 2014? He was very secretive about it at the time and swore my mom to silence so I’m not quite sure when he was originally diagnosed.
I don’t believe for his cancer there was a standard chemo option, or it was not a common treatment at the time. He was administered some form of chemo where they filled his bladder with the drug and several hours later they flushed the bladder. He went through several different treatment protocols, none with real success.
He had his bladder removed in early 2016 and has had a stoma/osotomy since. I really worried about how he would adjust, but he did well.
The issues in the last several years have been with his kidneys. They’ve been so scarred over the years from medical treatments that he is fairly constantly fighting a low or worse grade UTI. But he has always been terrible about drinking enough fluids, which does not help the situation any.
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