I went to get my Power Port put in. This is a device they implant under the skin layer of your upper right chest, and then run a line under your clavicle into your jugular vein. This allows your chemo to go directly into your heart and circulatory system without having to find new veins every time you need blood pulled and chemo inserted. There is a circular opening under your skin that they find with their finger and just insert the needle there. Also, eliminate burning of chemo going in through smaller veins in your inner elbow. The procedure is outpatient surgery with a some medicine to make you loopy, but not out, and local anesthesia in the chest area. No pain at all, takes about 2 hours from check-in to discharge. The procedure itself is 30 minutes to an hour. They take an xray of your chest and I imagine this updates repeatedly as the surgeon guides the line to your vein. I could see the xray above me...and there it was. A small, perfectly round object, obviously out of place, right in the area where my right lung was. Nothing like that anywhere else on the xray. Hmmmm, bet I'll hear more about that tomorrow.
On Thursday, June 18, I went for a follow up with Dr. Sonpavde for the results of my scan. I had prepared myself extensively for the bad news. only 10% of Bladder Cancer patients are under the age of 55, only 30% of Bladder Cancer is High Grade, Aggressive. I was beating all the bad odds so I figured the die was cast. I tried preparing my wife, Janice, for the news too. I didn't want her to be shocked by anymore bad news. She wasn't having it for the most part. Plus, the radiologist wouldn't look me in the eye as I asked him on the way out, "See anything? Can't say? Wink if you did..."
Dr. Sonpavde came into the room, and from the first visit pretty unemotional guy, but this time, happy. He smilingly said the PET scan came back with no cancer detected anywhere in my body other than my bladder. Liver functions are perfect (always good news for a bar owner), Kidney clear, lymph node, nada. There was a small 9mm thing on my right lung he said, (here we go...) but that too looks to be nothing. We'll keep an eye on it but it didn't "glow" at all. People have these cysts so not uncommon.
I had to let it sink in for a second. Wasn't expecting this news. You see, when you set yourself up for really bad news, its as much a shock when you get good news as when you expect good news but get bad. Confusing you? Sorry. But after a second I said, "Are you saying you didn't find cancer anywhere else, still contained to the bladder?" "Yes, it is the best possible news". "HURRAY! I got stage II cancer!" I said and he smiled. Perspective is everything. So this means I have a fighting chance. If it would have spread already, I'd have about 70% chance of dying in 5 years, most likely much less than 5 years. Now were talking CURE rate of 65% to 70% percent with Chemo and Radical Cystectomy (RC). There are most likely little pissed off individual cancer cells floating in my blood stream that haven't yet figured out how to latch on to something and start making cancer cell babies in enough mass to show up on anything. So we do Chemo first to kill them, and shrink my original tumor prior to surgery. No one really knows what the size of my tumor is since some of it (maybe all, don't know) was taken out during the second biopsy. And in the PET scan my bladder just glowed as that where the cancer was and where the injected material gathers before I urinate it out. We'll run more test after my two rounds of Chemo.
NOTE TO CANCER PATIENTS: I did myself zero good by feeling sorry for myself and thinking the universe was setting me up to die and all the news would be bad. That was a lot of sleepness nights and unnecessary worry. Try to stay positive because all the news will not be bad. This is a tough illness, and the news won't always be good, but don't assume bad news before you know it. Rest your mind if you can.
I went to get my first Chemo treatment that afternoon and that was pretty routine as well, if not long. I had one bag of saline first, so my body would be ready to pee out this poison they were about to fill me with. When it hits the kidneys you want it out of there as fast as possible to prevent Kidney damage, so drink LOTS of Gator-Aid. Water is good too, but you need electrolyte replacement as well so my nurse recommended the drink created for the Florida football team, GO SEC! First chemo treatment consists of 1 hour saline, 1 hour Gencitabin, 2 hours of Cisplatin (the mean one), then another hour of saline. Long day. They'll also put in some anti-nausea medicine, in addition to what you'll already be taking in pill form. They say nausea is hard to beat once it sets in so important to stay a step ahead of it. Also, this chemo is platinum based so may leave a metal taste in your mouth. They advise not to eat your favorite foods on chemo because you may create an aversion to it later.
Friday, June 19 I have pretty much stayed in bed. Didn't have to, just haven't had any reason to get up and a little tired. Nausea felt like it was coming on a couple times but Janice chunks pills down my throat when I tell her and been mostly fine all day. Shorts posts later in the week to update chemo effects as I go along. I just have a 1 hour chemo the second week so going to try and have that in Daphne rather than Birmingham. I will see my doctor every three weeks, unless something changes, and that when I have the 6 hour chemo treatment which I will have in Birmingham at the same time. I included a picture of me getting some work done while getting chemo treatment.
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