Chemo - 1 of 3

Today was my first day of Chemotherapy. I must be the luckiest, most blessed man alive.

I have three week-long rounds of chemo, and then I'm done by Christmas. Everybody I met and visited with today have longer rounds, some don't even have end dates! Allison and I visited with two sisters who were there for each other; one was getting chemo for a rare cancer that the tumors keep growing back, the other had just finished a four year round of steroid therapy. Another lady has anemia, she's not sure exactly what kind, or what the source is, but she was there and will continue until they figure something out. Her husband had had colon cancer, as well as three open heart surgeries! The last lady we visited with had breast cancer and seems to need chemotherapy for about 4 months. So, if anyone hears from me "poor me, pity me," slap me and remind me of my blessings, my lovely, super-supportive wife and children, and my diagnosis of a curable disease! All of that is direct blessings of the Lord, His grace and mercy taking place in my life (& my family's).

OK, so all was not fun and games today. The first try for a vein was not successful, but they were able to get the second try; however, they couldn't get the blood draw out of that vein so they had to draw blood a few minutes later from somewhere else. Mostly I was just too tense to start the morning, but things settled down and worked fine after that. They left the IV in for overnight and we'll see how it goes for a few days.

I was juiced up with about 5-6 different IV bags. There was just saline to hydrate me abit. Then, I had some drugs that are to settle the nausea and other reactions. They also did potassiam since one of the drugs affects my kidneys. Finally, they started with one of the main drugs, after that, they gave me a test dosage of the one I have every Monday and I had NO adverse reactions. Then the main, long 2-3 hour drip of Cistplatin, and finally, the rest of the test dosage. We had arrived at 9am and left just after 4pm. The rest of the week should go much quicker, probably only until about 1pm. I read some, played solitaire, surfed the Internet, and read my email. (I had to go the bathroom a number of times, and for a long time!)

I got home and took my 1/2 hour recommended walk, we had a nice little dinner, and now I'm catching up from the day. Since this is the first day, I still feel good, just tired since we got home, but, after dinner felt much better.

I'll update you with more as time goes on.