Darth Vader is in the house!!

Well, the bar has been raised. A woman just arrived here in the chemo room wearing a Darth Vader helmut...ready to do battle...and even has a fake laser gun...zapper...that she is asking anyone if they would like her to zap their cancer. Dad was fair game so he got zapped! This is the woman's first day of chemo and obviously she is prepared mentally and has a great sense of humor...more power to her! She is sitting next to Dad so I will be watching with interest!

Thursday

Dad slept good last night, but woke up around 4:00 with achy arms...which he had the last time around...all he has to do is dangle his arms down to his side and after a few minutes it's better. He also got through some more hiccups last evening but no sign of them today. So he feels good this morning and is currently hooked up to the starting fluids.

Yesterday the Med Center called to see when he was scheduled for the echocardiogram and the pulmonary test and when she heard it was set up for the 10th, she said that wouldn't work well because it would hold things up. It seems that these tests are needed by the insurance company and until they have them, they can't preapprove the stem cell procedure....and considering the unthinkable price on that...well, it's necessary. She was concerned that they would be able to get another appointment early enough...the insurance needs about a week to process the results. So after I visited with the nurse at Dad's oncologist's office, she told me to call the hospital to see when I could get him rescheduled. I happened to get some one on the ball at the hospital that was very nice and I ended up getting the tests scheduled for 7:00 next Monday morning. I called back the coordinator at the Med Center to tell her and she was so impressed she wanted to hire me as a scheduler! So the good news is that Dad will have those tests before the Neulasta shot kicks in and causes a bit of discomfort. Also, for the insurance company, Dad had to have 2 more blood tests...which were done today before he started chemo...at least they were able to take it out of his port.

So beyond today, the plan is such:
Friday, Jan 28: Neulasta shot
Monday Jan 31: echocardiogram & pulmonary test
Thursday Feb. 3: blood work
Wed. Feb. 9: blood work
Thurs., Feb 10 PET and CT scan....probably getting the results later that day...if the chemo has done it's thing, then on to the 14th
Monday Feb 14: appointment with his doctor at the Med Center...at this point, the doctor will make the final assessment and then will let us know when he needs to return to start things going for the stem cell transplant. I don't know if this might be the next day...or the next week. We'll be ready for whenever.

So that's it in a nutshell. I'll keep you all posted as to details along the way.

Wed. report

Dad slept good last night, had a good breakfast, and is currently hooked up to one of 2 chemical drips today. His blood pressure is good and all is well other than he has had 2 cases of the hiccups...apparently caused by one of the chemicals or the steroid that he received. So other than a few odd stares by other patients ...due to his noisy hiccups, it's been fairly uneventful. Dad has been working all morning here since he didn't need the benadryl today and I have had to wait my turn to type this post! I'll make it short so he can get back to work!

Thanks to all who commented yesterday...he really enjoyed that!

We should be out of here by noon today.

1:00 update

Well, Dad just woke up (no smelling salts needed) and after reading all of your comments, he had a big smile on his face. He's now ready for some lunch ...we brought our own...but for the record, Tom and Matt, the lady in the chair next to Dad had someone pick up a Culver's sandwich for her!

Round 2 Day 1 underway

Dad is all hooked up and is just starting the first of 4 chemicals today. He's doing fine...felt good this morning...insisted on hanging on to my arm, walking me to my car door...our driveway was really icy this morning. Somehow I thought it would be worse if HE fell instead of me...but I guess he thought otherwise. Then when we got here this morning, he insisted on carrying all our gear for the day...his computer, our little cooler with our lunch, and my tote bag with the newspaper and a book.

So he's off in Benadryl la-la land right now so that helps pass the time for him. I'm sure as he drifted off he had visions of last night's webcam where Delia gave her "go Grandpa go" cheer and 2 thumbs up! He got a real kick out of that!

While he's sleeping, I'm going to head to the grocery store just across the street and get a few things for a quick and easy dinner tonight. The view out the window here is really pretty with the field covered with snow. There are a few sets of deer tracks, it looks like....and if we're lucky, we'll see the fox that sometimes is seen around the trees. I'll post later on today to keep you updated.

Dr. visit update

Good news from Dad's doctor visit this morning: his blood work is good. White blood cells down a bit but still in the normal range, hemoglobin strong, and his platelets are much improved. Last week his platelets were pretty low: 76.5 (normal is between 150-450). This week they are at 305...a huge jump.

So the plan now is he goes through round 2 of chemo tomorrow, Wed, and Thurs. Then they are scheduling him to have his next scan on Feb 10. At that point they will be looking to see how much the tumor has responded to the 2 rounds of chemo and if all is well, he will go up to the Med Center in Omaha to see his doctor there for an appointment that following week to discuss when the harvesting of stem cells and the transplant will take place. Also, on the 10th, Dad will have an Echocardiogram (ultrasound of the heart) and a pulmonary assessment...checking the lungs. These are both routine tests the doctor in Omaha needs before proceeding with a stem cell transplant.

But for now...one step at a time. Dad will be up bright and early tomorrow at 8:00 to start day one of round 2 chemo. He says he feels strong (I would say that is an understatement!). That first day is the long one...8 hours...so any comments made on the blog tomorrow will help him pass the time. He will have his laptop with him. I'll keep you posted tomorrow.

How to Subscribe to this Blog

We've been getting some requests as to how people can subscribe to the blog so that they receive emails when we publish a new post. It took some finagling, but I finally got the feature to work.

In the upper right-hand column, you will see a heading that says, "Subscribe via Email" and looks like this:

Type your email address in the box where it prompts you, then hit the "Subscribe" button below that.

A window will pop up and prompt you to type the encrypted code (so we know you're not a robot)

Type in the code, and then hit "Complete Subscription Request"

You will see this pop up on the window prompting you to check your email for an activation notice:

Check your email. You should receive an email from Feedburner that looks like this:

Click on the link that they provide in the email and it will take you to another website that looks like this:

And then you are officially subscribed and magical unicorns will fly through the sky and all will be right with the world!

The New 'Do

So, late last week dad noticed his hair coming out a lot. Just a few one day, then a bit more the next, and by Saturday it was falling out in clumps when he'd pull on it. He said it's kind of an agitated tingling type feeling, and he even had trouble sleeping on Friday night because it felt like every movement was pulling the hair out of his head. So, after dinner last night Mom went about the business of giving the old man a buzz cut, while I stood by and provided Quality Control.

Last time, the buzzer that they got was really not good quality....it clumped up very easily and tugged at his hair. But this time, they went out and got a really nice one and it worked like a charm.

So we thought we'd post some new pictures of his new hairdo...

Badass Leo is back! :-)

I have no idea what he is doing here, but it cracked me up.

Photo caption contest on the the previous picture and the one that follows...come on guys, I know you can come up with something clever! :-)

Here he is in front of my car that he famously backed into while under the influence of 'roids last year. He looks like he's gloating. Or showing off his new hat since last time he shaved his head it was the middle of summer. It's a bit different when its 0° out.

I think I asked him to smile, and this is what he gave me.

Not that mom would never have let me put the above picture up on the blog. But what she doesn't realize is that as a photographer, my subjects sign an invisible contract wherein I am allowed to exploit the weird faces that they willingly, and with malice aforethought, make at me. :-)

This one is my favorite though:

Update

Dad went in for his weekly check at the oncologist, seeing the P.A. there this time (he has seen her before and she's really nice). She was asking how he was feeling ...answer: fine...and then asking if he had any this or that (specific problems) and he kept saying no. She finally stopped and told him he should be a poster child for chemo treatment. Of course, this was not the first time Dad has heard this...his regular oncologist had previously said something like he should be their poster child. Of course, Dad was again amused!

Good news: his white blood cells have increased. Last week (before the Neulasta shot had had time to work) the WBC count was 1.67 (the average is 4.00 - 10.0). Today his count was 10.9...so he was above average!

All of his other blood work looks good, but his platelets are still low. FYI: platelets are tiny cells that are found in the blood. Their purpose is to help the blood clot. Platelets are made in the bone marrow and then they are released into the bloodstream. So our intent this week is to increase those platelets.

The next step is going to his doctor next Monday morning to get the go ahead for the next round of chemo that next day. I'll keep you all posted.

Back up and running

Finally, I’m back posting after a brief “lapse”. Thank you to Sara for doing the posts while I was in the hospital. I’m recovering well and ready to get back to things as usual. Thanks to so many people for your support and care throughout my hospital stay…family, friends…I appreciate everything that each and every one of you did. I’m very blessed to have family & friends like you. I was very well taken care of! After going through this, I am so amazed at what medical advances have been made…to think they can remove a gallbladder laparoscopically (using 3 small incisions and 1 larger one (in the navel)) and fill your abdomen with air to maneuver the tools around and then extract the gallbladder through the navel…well it’s just amazing. If any of you would like to see an illustration of where they insert the laparoscopes…here’s a link: http://www.doereport.com/generateexhibit.php?ID=5095&ExhibitKeywordsRaw=&TL=&A=

It’s only an illustration, but if you’re queasy about seeing medical stuff…you might want to skip it, but the medically curious may want to click on it. (I'm fairly glad I didn't see this before my surgery!)

So on to keeping you updated as to Dad’s progress. So I left off on the last of 3 days of chemo week before last…that was a Thursday. On Friday morning (with me in the hospital) Dad had to go to the oncologist’s to get his Neulasta shot that they always give 24 hours after each treatment. After a round of chemo, the white blood cell count usually takes quite a dip, which in turn, lessens a person’s immunity. By getting a Neulasta shot, this helps produce white blood cells. More technically, Neulasta binds to stem cells (located primarily in the bone marrow) and stimulates the production of neutrophils, a certain type of white blood cells. Apologies for getting so technical, but I think it helps understand what Dad is going through.

So the Neulasta shot takes about a week to the day to take effect…to start producing the white blood cells and this can cause aching in the larger bones (legs, hips, back) as these cells are being produced. So on Thursday of last week, Dad experienced some severe pain that he just had to weather through at work and into the evening. It overlapped into Friday, also, so I had him take a heating pad to wrap around his hips and back because that seemed to help a bit. By Saturday he was fine and back to usual. He says that because he could feel it, it must be doing the job.

On his last trip for blood work last Tuesday, his white blood cell count was way down (the shot had not had time to do its thing). His next visit to the doctor for blood work is tomorrow and I will let you know what the results are of that.

From then…he has another check up visit to his oncologist on Monday (Jan. 24)…a week from today….and then another round of chemo Tues, Wed. Thurs. of that week…identical to the last round.

Surgery Success

Mom's gallbladder removal went well! She was in the operating room for a little over an hour and then in recovery for about an hour after that. She's got some abdominal pain, but that is clearly to be expected. She's currently snoozing a bit and enjoying eating some ice chips in between the snoozes. 

She'll be here overnight (the doctor's said if she felt great she could leave yet today, but I am guessing that will not be the case). 

Dad went home to take a nap, so I'm relieving Andy of his post (he stayed here with her last night). 

In a sidenote, I am hungry and don't really want to participate in Sloppy Joe Saturday at the cafeteria...I am horrified that they serve "Deep Fat Fried Chicken Fingers" here at a hospital. So wrong. I'll have to attack the salad bar again, methinks. :-) 

Feel free to leave comments and I will pass them along to mom. 

The Marathon Woman

Okay...I I have to share this with all of you. The nurses were encouraging mom to go for a walk in the hallways because it tends to help after having anesthesia from her ERCP earlier today. She was feeling kinda puny after laying in bed for the last 24+ hours. So, she finally agreed to go for a walk. As we were heading out the nurse said "Nine laps around makes a mile, if you're feeling ambitious" I think she might have been semi joking, but it's hard to tell.

So we got up and started walking, mom in her very "Dude"-like hospital robe pushing her mobile IV machine, and after a lap or two around mom was feeling tons better. So she then decided she was going to make it a mile. So she just went at it and looked like she was feeling better with every lap.

True story...when a baby is born in the hospital here they play Brahms's Lullaby over the intercom. So, two babies were born while mom and I walked the mile!! Kinda cool.

But cooler still was how mom decided she was going to RUN to the finish line about 3 doors down from her room here which with her wild hair, standard issue blue footie slippers, disheveled hospital robe, and feeble run  made her look like a total mental patient to everyone else (myself included). The fact that she was laughing while she was doing this wasn't helping her case, either. I wish I could have taken a picture of the faces of the family sitting in the room next to us who saw the whole thing transpire. Priceless.


In other news... mom is talking to Joy on the phone and Joy must have said something about her walking with her "dancing partner" to which mom replied: "Just tryin' to make Leo jealous"

Plot Twist! (subtitle: Go, Grandma, Go!)

Well...didn't see this one coming.

As dad was having his last dose of chemo for the week, mom started feeling pain in her abdomen. After waiting it out for awhile, the pain just got worse and she realized that she was likely having another gallstone attack. Sooo yesterday afternoon she checked into the ER and had some tests done to confirm that was what was going on. So she was admitted last night up to the main part of the hospital and is currently awaiting surgery for the removal of her gallbladder.

Earlier today she had an ERCP which stands for something. I can't keep up with medical acronyms. Anyway, it's a procedure where they scope down her throat into her bile ducts to make sure that there isn't any obstructions because the ducts were inflamed in the ultrasound she had yesterday.

So, she came out of that a little while ago but was pretty groggy. They had to pump some air into her abdomen so she was having quite a bit of discomfort until I made her get some more Dilaudid and some Zofran for the kind of queasy nausea she has been having. Unfortunately she ended her "Vomit-free since '73" streak post-surgery. Wasn't much to come up though since she's only allowed liquids. 

Andy is flying into town this evening, which will be nice to help out! 

Mom is scheduled to have surgery to remove the gallbladder tomorrow at 7:30 a.m. So I will keep you posted with all of that. I know only all too well what goes with this procedure. For an insight as to what that is like, check out my blog about it from a little over a year ago.

In the meantime, I have been promoted to head nurse.

Move over Nurse Ratchet, there's a new sheriff in town! :-)

P.S. Mom just said to me "Maybe you can get some of that diddle-ay" she meant dilaudid. 

P.P.S. Also, a little bit ago when Matt called my phone vibrated on the table while she was snoozing so i grabbed it quickly and said "sorry!" to her and she goes "Oh...I thought that was me." So for clarification I said: "Oh, you thought it was your cell phone?" to which she replied "Nope. Just thought it was me." 

P.P.P.S. I have been forbidden from publishing pictures of her on here. But she is asleep right now... :-)

Done!

Dad's home and doing fine...going to have some lunch and then work at home this afternoon. I took some pictures today...I thought you might like to see the area where Dad goes for his chemo treatments.

Here's the chemo treatment room as you go in:

Here's the other part of the room after you're inside:

Dad always chooses a window seat. Here's his view:

Here's Dad and his "dancing partner":

Here's Dad doing work while getting his chemo (you can see his port on the right side of his chest). The white square on the other side is a name tag that they always give when patients come in:

3rd and final day of this round

Last evening (before and after dinner) Dad was plagued with those darn hiccups. He got those last time he had chemo...I'm not sure what triggers that. Some of the hiccups last night lasted for 5 to 10 minutes...which is a long time for hiccups. But the good part is that he DID get over them. He slept good last night and woke up feeling good. He had a good breakfast and left the house around 7:40. He's currently hooked up to his "dancing partner" and is doing fine. He again has just 2 bags of chemo today so we should be out of here by 11:30 or so. Just wanted to let you all know that things are going smoothly today. I just told Dad that there isn't much to report today and he said that's a good thing!

2 days down...one to go

Dad finished his chemo a little after noon today...so it wasn't long at all compared to yesterday. His blood pressure and heart rate remained elevated, but the nurses checked with the doctor there (Dad's doctor wasn't there today) and she said it was probably due to the steroid that he got. I'll be watching for other signs tonight, but he's doing fine...working away & doing some more business. He ate a good lunch and drank a lot of water this morning. His urine output was fine this morning so he passed the test for that...his kidneys seem to be handling the situation just fine. His favorite nurse, Sara, helped him today so that was nice...we hadn't seen her since spring of '09 when he went through the other round of chemo.

So tomorrow will be the same routine as today, but they will pull the port needle and apparatus out after his treatment and put another one in when he goes in for his next round of chemo in 3 weeks. Stay tuned for tomorrow's postings.

2nd day of chemo

Dad slept good last night and woke up feeling good. He had breakfast and we're now at the chemo place and he's getting one of the 2 chemicals de jour. His blood pressure was a bit up today as was his heart rate. The nurse said it was probably from the steroid dose given intravenously yesterday (standard pre-chemo drugs). It must be ok because they gave him more of the steroids before starting the chemo this morning. Right now he has a persistent case of the hiccups which he had for a day or 2 last time he went through chemo. It's mostly just irritating because his hiccups can be really loud...so I think this outdoes his snoring yesterday! He didn't have any benadryl today so is awake and alert. We've already played several hands of gin rummy.

I think we should be out of here by noon today. As far as I understand, he will be good to go as long as he has good urine output today...and so far so good. I need to get off of the computer so that Dad can do some work on it. I'll post something a bit later.

end of day report

Dad got along fine with the chemo today. We didn't get out of there until after 5:00 so it was a bit of a long day. We were the last ones to leave! Dad ended up doing quite a bit of work on his computer during the afternoon so that helped pass time. His doctor came in to visit just before the last drip was done and told him to drink lots and lots of water as one of the chemicals is really hard on kidneys. We already had been told about that, but it was good to hear it from his doctor for reinforcement. Leo had already done a really good job of drinking 60 ounces of water throughout the day...along with 5 bags of fluids...so his teeth were floating today! He has to keep a watch for any blood in his urine, but no sign so far!

He came home and ate a good dinner...home made pizzas and continued to drink more water, broth, and a glass of milk to further the fluid intake. He's gone to bed now...a bit tired, but that's to be expected. He has that contraption with the needle in it hooked on his port for the 3 days of treatment so he wore a tshirt to bed and hopefully won't roll on his stomach during the night.

He has to be there at 8:00 tomorrow morning, but unlike today where he got 4 different chemicals, tomorrow he will only get 2 (plus the saline solution that runs concurrently with the chemo and some other small bags of preliminary stuff...anti-nausea). He doesn't get benadryl tomorrow so won't be quite as sleepy. One of the 2 bags he gets tomorrow lasts 1 1/2 hours and the other 1/2 hour...so we should be out of there by around noon I would think. Also, one of those bags is the one that's hard on the kidneys...so he will be drinking a lot more water tomorrow, too.

I guess that's it for now. I'll post more tomorrow from the oncologist's.

1:45 update

Dad is still doing fine. The benadryl finally wore off around 12:30 so he had some lunch and has been doing some work on his laptop. There's about 15 minutes left to this first bag of chemo and then on to the second bag which will take an hour, the 3rd will take 1 hour and 15 min, and the 4th and final bag today is about 1/2 hour. So we should be out of here around 5:00. I'll post again later.

11:00 AM Chemo underway

Dad's doing well with the chemo treatment. They didn't get started until around 9:00 and his new port is working well. He had to have quite a few pre-chemo iv drugs...some anti-nausea stuff, benadryl, just routine things. He's currently on the first of 4 drugs today....it's Rituxan and it takes the longest...4 hours (I believe it...the iv drip is going 1 drop every 5-6 seconds).

Dad is currently zoned out...sleeping..from the benadryl....so that helps him pass the time. He woke up to go to the bathroom and then put his headset on to listen to his music and is again sleeping. Hopefully his snoring doesn't get too loud! If it does, I guess the others will just have to get used to it!

So all is going well. They have to monitor his kidneys as one of the chemicals puts stress on them...so they just have to monitor his output. I can see by the machine that his blood pressure is doing good...116 over 69.

It's pretty busy here in the chemo area...currently 10 people. They just bumped up the speed at which the rituxan is dripping. They have to start off slower to help keep any side effects down. Guess that's it for now. I'll post again later.

Port in place

I got a little behind with the holidays, but I've spoken with all of you (kids!) about this already. Last Thursday Dad had a port put in to be an easy access for his chemo treatments. It was actually a bit of a longer surgical procedure than I had thought...the surgery itself took about 45 min to an hour. The doctor came in afterwards and said that all went well. They made a puncture point in the side of Dad's neck which enabled the doctor to "tunnel" down a few inches lower to implant the port into his upper chest. The port is under the skin, but you can see it (a raised area) and feel it, so it's easy to access for chemo and for blood draws. It seems to be about 1" or so across (it's triangular shaped). It has a catheter going from the port to a central vein going to the heart. Dad has to carry around a card in his billfold identifying the fact that he has a port for emergency reasons (he also is wearing a rubber bracelet that alerts medical emergency technicians of the same).

Here's what it looks like:

And here's what it looks like implanted under the skin:

Dad got along fine during the procedure and the nurse seemed to be a little surprised that Dad stayed awake during the whole procedure, even though they gave him drugs (through the IV) that were to take him to lala land, but then as Sara says...Dad is a freak of nature! So he chatted with the doctor during the whole thing.

The surgery included the puncture wound in his neck and then a 2" incision for the implant.

The nurse went over the care of the stitches, what he could take for pain, what he could and couldn't do for a few day. He asked her if he could shovel snow and she looked at him like he was nuts...but her answer of "no" seemed to please him. He had the nurse write that down on the instruction sheet (the one that he had to sign to approve) so I would be sure to see it (as if Nurse Ratchet would even consider that!)

He had to wait in post-op for about an hour and then he came home. He had a bit of discomfort later on and even went to bed before half-time of the Nebraska-Washington bowl game (but then that was another source of discomfort!).

On Friday, he was a bit uncomfortable, but Tylenol took care of it. By Saturday it was still bandaged, but was irritated because of the bandage adhesive tape, so I removed it and put another gauze pad and different tape to hold it. Today (Sunday) it was irritated again by the other tape, so we took off the bandages (as directed) after the 72 hours. It looks good with no signs of infection. It was really good for Dad to get the port several days before the chemo starts to give things a chance to settle down.

Dad goes to work tomorrow (Monday) as usual and then begins his first round of chemo on Tuesday. That day is a long one...8 hours. Then he continues the treatment Wed. and Thurs, but those days are slightly shorter...I think 4 or 5 hours. I will keep you posted of Dad's progress of these treatments and I should be able to post during the day as they have computers I can use just outside of the chemo area.

Keep those positive thoughts and prayers coming this week!