Rnd 4: Week 1

My girls, wearing their warrior shirts

   The two weeks leading up to this most recent round of chemo (round 4!) included an echocardiogram and CT scan.  My heart seems to be holding up, which I intend to help out by trying harder to include more frequent and regular cardio workouts.  This time for the scan, it was only CT (no PET), so I had to drink the whole bottle of barium (1/2 at 8:30 and the rest at 9:30).  It was all done in the car on the way over to Boulder, and Rebekah made fun of all my gagging sounds since the liquid chalk neither tasted like "mocha" nor "cinno."
   I think doing all this will be made easier as the appointment with the PA Lisa a week later confirmed that the CT scan showed the single lymph node that lit up in the initial PET scan at 21 x 15mm is now 4mm, indicating a complete response to treatment.  So, yes, Mt. Lymphoma has crumbled and I appear to be cancer free (a final PET scan after treatment, though, will be the final say)!  I will still have to finish all six rounds to make sure we turn the rubble into dust then dig a bit more out through those last two rounds, but I’m ready to move on.  With round four finished on Valentine’s Day (I know, I have great timing), I am 2/3 of the way through treatments and hope to have life resuming toward normal by the middle of April.
   This time around, I did enter the chemo room with increased anxiety despite my amazing news.  Or because of it?  I am tired of the prednisone, I am tired of the severe constipation and hiccups that follow treatment, the thought of which right now is enough to send me into a panic attack, I am tired of more hair from all over continuing to fall out in patches (I noticed my eyebrows are thinning now), and I am tired of feeling so tired. There's one thought that keeps me going: with the cancer gone, these last rounds will be what obliterate anything that could be hiding thus guarding against relapse.

Me, Jeanni, and Bret

   The anxiety of chemo day, though, was quickly forgotten in visits from Rebekah’s mom, my parents, and our dear friends Bret and Jeanni.  The day was still basically 9:40 - 4:30 (though they did get my Rituxan up to 400 mL/hour for the first time!).  But apparently, with enough coffee and conversation, the Benadryl doesn’t knock me out cold.
   So, for the hiccups, I am armed with a new prescription (Baclofen) suggested by someone from a Facebook DLBCL support group (this time a muscle relaxant instead of an antipsychotic).  The chemo nurse also suggested a dosing strategy for one of the other prescriptions I have. Honestly, our medicine cabinet is starting to look like a pharmacy!  And the Baclofen has been a wonderous addition!  After nearly 92 hours of hiccups last time with little relief, I have been able to keep the hiccups completely at bay, so they've cost me not added anxiety, stress, or sleep this time around. And so I realize now that this first week of the cycle is hardest because, fresh from being pumped full of toxins, I spend much of my time fighting and medicating the symptoms of chemo: the nausea, the aches, the hiccups, the prednisone jitters, the constipation, the diarrhea, the insomnia, and fatigue.  Yep, half of those things seem to to oppose each other, but yet they manage.  It truly makes me appreciate the good health I'd enjoyed going into all this so that I wasn’t beginning at an already low point.  I never had a single symptom of the lymphoma but was made to feel sick by the chemo.

"Obi-Pole" Kenobi and Arfour

   Of course, no week is complete without something going askew.  This week, my poor Rebekah, who's remained such a strong caregiver and co-warrior through this, has ended up with a lung thing that won't let go.  It has certainly made the Opal house a bit strained.
   I keep being told, though, that I'm doing quite well.  I wonder what I might've looked like then!  My GI tract is so messed up that it goes from taking Colace and Senokot with a Miralax chaser to scrambling for Imodium.  Chemo is not kind!  And I'm most definitely developing neuropathy (tingling and numbness) in my fingers, likely from the vincristine.  They seem not to be too concerned since I can still button and zip my pants.  It's a balancing act of a strong enough dose and not so toxic it kills the patient as well as the cancer.  Perhaps my dosing can be adjusted?   Yeah, probably not.
   And so, I am doing well now.  I like to say I've hung in better than my hairline has managed to.  Did I mention my eyebrows are thinning?  That's not got me very happy.  Better my hair than my life...small price.  Truly, I got this!  Being fully cured is just around the corner!  I did have one of the worst panic attacks in a while when I began thinking about the future and Googling relapse rates.  None of it means anything without knowing of who I am and my experience.  My awesome brother-in-law Nate has specific research background in cancer treatment and R-CHOP, and he walked me back from the ledge and was very reassuring.  I have so many positive prognosticators and my awesome Support Squad pulling for me, thus I have no reason to believe that the cancer is anything but gone and will never relapse.

#blowingupmtlymphoma