The second chemo marked the halfway point of treatment. My neck had changed from it's normal shade to a very healthy looking tan and then to a painful looking sunburn. I was starting to have some difficulty swallowing but was still eating pretty much whatever I wanted. Of course, I couldn't taste squat. It was subtle but starting at about the two week mark everything starting having a faint metallic taste. As time went on it got less and less subtle. I also ran into a couple of major flaws in my overall plan.
First flaw, my arms. It wasn't that long ago that I told Doogie that my veins were awesome and I wouldn't be needing a port. Since that day I had already had a full blood panel, an IV for my tongue biopsy surgery, an IV for the first chemo and one blood draw a week for the last 3 weeks. The nurses were starting to take longer and longer to pick a spot to stick me.
Second flaw, my weight. I had been eating a tremendous amount of food. I never missed a meal and super sized everything yet I was still getting a ration of crap from Dr. K every Wednesday. Every weigh in I was down a pound or two which didn't seem like a lot to me (I AM sick you know). Dr. K had bristled about my declining the feeding tube and weekly asked me if I had a stomach tube. Either she couldn't read the chart she had laying open in her lap, had a lousy memory and didn't remember my answer from the previous week or she was trying to make a point. They had allowed me 30 pounds over the duration of the treatment. They were telling me that projecting my current rate of loss I would break my limit and they would have to intervene.
My mom drove in from New Mexico to stay with me during the second chemo while Robin was at her training class in California. My sister-in-law Saint Beck drove in from Houston to help out as well. My brother-in-law Mike had called and asked if he could come along too. He and I usually talk music for hours and I couldn't think of a better way to pass the time or better people to do it with. The bad news, T was at the Southlake office today and someone else would be doing my treatment. After three attempted sticks with no success, I suggested we give someone else a shot. The doc's nurse, Deb, looked at my arms and talked a bit and ended up calling the tech from radiology that does my PETs. Bingo. Stuck me first time.
While Deb was there, I lodged a few complaints. First and foremost, I wanted Dr. K off my back. Deb is a pro and backed up her doctor but talked with me about my decision to forego the tube and my weight loss. She found the problem right away. For the last three years I had been eating and training like an athlete. Now, I was trying to gain weight by eating larger portions of healthy food. Problem was there was just not enough calorie content. Her first suggestion, add ice cream, milkshakes, and other fun stuff. Then she told us about Carnation VHC (Very High Calorie). It is a canned breakfast drink primarily for cancer patients that has almost 700 calories. She hadn't even finished telling me about it when Beck looked over the top of her iPad and said "Ordered a case. Be here tomorrow." Like I have said, I was in very good hands. Deb also gave me a number to shoot for: 3500 calories a day.
With my IV started I told the nurse I had some pain when receiving the cisplatin on the first treatment and that afterward my vein was hard to the touch from my elbow to my armpit for two weeks. I shared that information with her so she would slow down the infusion pump for the cisplatin. What I didn't know for a while was she had slowed down the pump before we even started. I received all of the fluids at the slower speed making my four hour treatment end up taking over seven hours. All of the company made the time pass so quickly. Cindy came by and got to meet everyone. There is a sign in the infusion suite that says you can only have one visitor and I had a party going on.
My chemo ran so long that the radiation techs stuck their head in the door several times, looked at my IV tree and shook their heads. The third time, they asked how much longer I would be. At that time I was just wrapping up the cisplatin so I had a large bag of fluids to go. They had a huddle and decided to unplug me, radiate me, and then plug me back in to finish up. I got out of the recliner and started walking towards radiation. The tech turned to my entourage and said "You guys wanna watch?". They let my mom, Mike and Becky come into the room and see how they bolted my head down. Then they went outside and watched the techs line me up with the x-rays and deliver the treatment. It was a very cool thing the tech did that really put my family at ease.
After that, back to the recliner to finish my bag.
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