14th - Today's Flight to London

Thanks to everyone for the good mojo today.  I got through my first chemo session thanks to you.

In the end, it was the same as the routine flight from Charlotte to London.  Six plus hours long, the other people around you really don't look too healthy, the movie selection is terrible and the food makes you sick to your stomach.  For the frequent flyers in the group, I really wish chemo could be like a nice flight on Singapore Airlines.  Alas, it is too similar to US Airways.

In all seriousness, today's nurse Eileen was fantastic and she got me through with flying colors.  She is the mother of three boys and is from NY state.  Although my Mom is from NJ, they could have been sisters in spirit.  She made it much easier to bear.

Stuart stayed with me most of the time...I nodded off for a while in the beginning after a healthy dose of Benadryl as part of the "pre-chemo regime" and even watched a bit of a movie.  Today's film was Chloe, a racy, rated-R number that was long on nude scenes featuring Amanda Seyfriend, but woefully short on plot.  At least it didn't make me throw-up.

Speaking of nudity, I know I promised a picture of the port, but I think it's best to wait a few days...things are not where they are supposed to be at the moment.

One piece of annoying news today.  I read further into my pathology report and found that my count of CD68+ cells is very high (>25% of the background/benign cells are these macrophage cells).  A recent study about Hodgkin's Lymphoma published in the New England Journal of Medicine linked this "molecular marker" to a poorer prognosis for primary treatment as well as secondary treatment in case of a relapse.

So, all in all, today was a good day.  The chemo went great, but my pathology report is back on the front-burner of my mind.

12th - A Problem w/ Mr. Deets

Special thanks again today to Bridget Ruller for watching Cooper in the morning and taking him to school.

This morning was extremely disappointing.  After another night of "no food or drink after midnight", Stuart and I went to CMC-Mercy at 9:30 for my port placement.  I will say that Mercy has been nicely remodeled since we last visited in the 1990's.  Beyond that, I have nothing nice to say today.  As we were beginning to fill out paperwork with the registrar, an RN stuck her head in and said, "There is a problem with Mr. Deets".  Wait a second, I am Mr. Deets, can I participate in this conversation?  She went on to explain that some of the equipment used in the port placement had been down since the early morning.  A phone call would have been nice!

So, we proceeded upstairs, where a very uninspiring middle-aged nurse asked if I'd rather have a temporary "pick-line" installed instead.  What?  Is this a used car lot?  I did make a couple phone calls to see if we could pull a string to get things done, but without success.

The port placement will have to wait until tomorrow...at CMC-University...just so I get the full tour of the "B" level facilities.

Wow, that post was cathartic.


An artist's rendition of CMC-Mercy after ongoing renovations are complete.

11th - Good News At Last

I spent a couple hours this morning with Debbie, one of the nurses at Dr. Frenette's office.  The point of the meeting was to walk through the detail of the upcoming ABVD chemotherapy treatment.  It was called a "learn" session and was very similar to the one Stuart and I attended last week at Dr. Hellner's office.

Dr. Frenette sounds like he is a big believer in "throwing the kitchen sink" at the side-effects that may result from the treatment.  Debbie walked me through a very expansive regime of drugs to deal with nausea, fever, chills, allergies, constipation, diarrhea, indigestion, sleep problems, etc.  It seems there are many side effects to ABVD Chemotherapy that can be controlled through drugs up front.  Others, like blood count changes and sore throat are treated symptomatically.  Others still, like hair-loss, sadly, cannot be controlled.

Everything is now set for the port placement tomorrow morning and the start of treatment on Thursday.

Over lunch, we got wonderful news from Dr. Hellner's office.  The results of the bone marrow biopsy came back negative; everything is fine with my bone marrow!  This finalizes the diagnosis as Stage IIIa.  Stuart and I both cried, as this was the first piece of good news in a very long string of bad news.

8th - How About a Port?

Not much news to report today, other than the fact that Dr. Frenette is recommending I have a "port" put in next week, prior to beginning my chemotherapy.

The best description I can find of a port is from Wikipedia:
In medicine, a port (or portacath) is a small medical appliance that is installed beneath the skin. A catheter connects the port to a vein. Under the skin, the port has a septum through which drugs can be injected and blood samples can be drawn many times, usually with less discomfort for the patient than a more typical "needle stick".

I'll post a picture once this thing is in.  For now, here are a couple generic images:

Port-a-Cath with needle assembly inserted.


Chest X-ray showing an implanted port.  Not me, as this guy doesn't look so good.