John's Cancer Trip

January 26, 2018 8:00 pm                      Back to  In the Beginning Finished last round lof chemo uneventfully.  Glad to be out of that chemo lab.  Most of the patients look awful. Oncologist is going to ask insurance for another Pet Scan in two weeks, plus start 2 to 3 weeks of daily radiation. Hopefully since we switched health plans they won't impose the 3 month gap requirement for the Pet Scan. The oncologist said he might do two more rounds of chemo based on the Pet Scan.  If insurance doesn't cover it, we might have to find a way to pay for it out of pocket and take the lesser reimbursement if any.  He has cut down the dosage of the Doxorubicin from 40ml down to 20ml quite a bit to avoid the infection risk and drop in white blood cells.  He didn't like doing it, but realized spending time in the hospital wasn't great either.  He was encouraged that the pain was gone. He said the bone di...

January 16, 2018  12:00pm                       Back to  In the Beginning Starting to look in to what's next after chemo and just so I know where to find these articles when the time comes; I thought I'd put them in here. FDA checkpoint - bladder cancer therapies The rapid uptake of immunotherapy in bladder cancer Cancer types/bladder cancer Astrazeneca:FDA approves bladder cancer drug Proton therapy Immunotherapy treatment center in CA Immunotherapy possibilities (mostly post-chemo therapies if cancer comes back) Oncolytic virus therapy Enadenotrucirev in combination with Keytruda(pembrolizumab) Checkpoint inhibitors/Immune Modulators Ateolizumab for high risk muscle invasive bladder cancer after surgery or in combination with varlilumab Durvalumab and tremelumumab and Poly-ICLC Nivolumab + ipilimumab and cabosantinib Adaptive Cell Therapy Remove T cells, modify with chemicals...

January 11, 2018  6:00pm                       Back to  In the Beginning Another round of chemo today. We met with the PA Kris at CCCN instead of Dr. V. Doc didn't get off easy as we posed a lot of questions to Kris about the ineffectiveness of Neulasta at keeping me out of the hospital. Dr. V. decided to cut back on the Doxorubicin by about half. I was surprised when I saw the syringe. Erase the image of a syringe in your mind. This is a one-inch pipe that is usually filled up with 4" of red liquid. It was a surprise to see how much less. Kris said it is always a balancing act between destroying the immune system and attacking the tumor with serious chemicals; this is just an adjustment. I brought some cookies from Freed's Bakery in for Kaleigh and Jennifer for all their help with insurance and scheduling. Jen was a little too happy that Kaleigh took the day off. I woke up last night with a bear of a calf cr...

January 6, 2018.  Back to  In the Beginning Here we go again...or don't eat the forbidden fruit! Back in the hospital again. Mikki and I were babysitting  and mid afternoon I started to feel run down. Slept for 2 hours and woke up with a scratchy throat and 102.5 fever. Protocol says over 100.5 with chemo, head to the ER. Gave a urine sample - came back negative. Nurse Katrina checked me in and PA Jennifer checked lungs and ordered blood test and X-ray. Katrina came back and said I'm moving to isolation room 17 in the ER. Also have a bit of yeast settle next to my gum which took advantage of the opportunity to inflame my cheek by the gum. X-ray tech Priscilla took me for my closeups. ER Tech Courtney took me back but some confusion about the room assignment. Ended up in Room 5. RN Steve took my blood samples from my port and sent them off. He said if anyone asks that the best needle to use for the port is a one inch 19 gauge. It's about 10x fatter than typical IV ne...