Triple whammy round two

In a nutshell this visit to the hospital went really well. Tim was quickly back on his feet and without the nausea that accompanied the week one chemo. So perhaps that really was due to the spinal tap and his reaction to that.

The learning from this time was to make sure to drink lots of fluids before being admitted. Tim had to wait until about 9:30 PM for the chemo dose to be delivered because he was not hydrated enough. And then as a result of a low blood pressure reading, he was on the list to have vitals checked every hour throughout the night. That made for not a whole lot of sleep for either me or Tim.

Blood counts were all pretty good. Platelets really rebounded, red cells were on the low end and the white cell mix was not normal but there were enough. The thought is that red cells will continue to be depressed as time goes on so there will likely be a gradual decline in energy level. Two days later for instance, Tim is really feeling the effect and is very tired and it is getting more difficult to simply walk a distance without his cardio system acting like he just ran a mile. We'll have to see how that continues to change over time.

He's also starting to feel more of the mid term effects fo the chemo drugs. His toes are now tingly from the vincristine and he has some balance problems also from the vincristine. Some good news also came last week in that the second opinion of the tumor pathology confirms the embyonal form rather than the alveolar form of the tumor. That would allow him to stay in the clinical trail that would end the triple whammy visits after four rounds. However, Tim is thinking that he's doing pretty good after this round and so is inclined to stay on the agressive chemo for the duration. He'll have to make that decision in the next 6 weeks so he'll have another triple whammy round to go through before that comes up.

He was able to go to a local soccer tournament to watch a game and met up with a bunch of people, distribute some more wrist bands and generally have a good time. It was exhausting but a good time to be outdoors. We'll see if the college women's game tomorrow can be attended or if it's just too much to deal with.

Zofran seems to be doing the trick for the nausea this time, but curiously he has some pretty whicked hiccups going on. This could be another side effect. They seem to last about an hour but then come back an hour or so later. We'll have to monitor any of these curious effects and see if they are just coincidence or if they really are caused by the treatment.

So, all in all a much better hospital admission.

--bob