Chemotherapy # 11

At this time I have completed 11 of 12 sessions of chemotherapy.  Only one more to go, and I am excited to be done.  As soon as we landed coming back from Arizona we met up with my dad at the airport and he drove us to the cancer center for my chemo.  We got there a little early, but I checked in anyway.  After a short wait my labs were done and we went to talk to the doctor.  Then we went to chemo.  For the first time since my last chemo in Saint Cloud, Taylor was able to come.  It was nice having her there.  She won't be able to go to the last one, because of classes however.  Everything went fine, and we were out of there within a couple hours of arriving.

On the  23rd I had to go see the ENT who did my surgery.  Taylor came with.  After a quick checkup with him feeling my neck he asked if we had any questions or anything.  I asked if we could see the latest PET scan, because we had not been able to see the images before - only hearing/reading the report.  He showed both my first one, and the latest one.  Hearing the news on the report before was good, but actually seeing it for ourselves was awesome!  There was a lot of stuff in me on the first scan, and on the latest one it was pretty much nothing.  It was really neat to see, and he told us that I can go to records and have them burn the images on a disc for me.  I thought that would be cool, and plan on doing it.

Only one more chemo to go, this coming Friday.  Can't wait to be done.

Chemotherapy #10

I am finished with 5 out of 6 cycles of my chemotherapy.  With only two more to go I am pretty excited for it to be over.  It is not fun to go through, but very much needed.  This time my Dad and I were accompanied by Timmy.  He had some time off so he decided to come up with my Dad for the chemo, which was awfully nice of him.  This time the it seemed like it took longer.  I still did homework, and my Dad and Timmy both had their own TV to watch.  Timmy used the one that was for me.  The doctor did forget to order one thing, an anti-nausea medication so that took a little time to get it sorted out but even without that it still felt longer for some reason.  It was also the latest session I've had.  Normally it is earlier in the day.  It won't however be the latest, the next one will be even later because of our flight.

With this last one I have gotten sick a few times, and had (still have) the awful taste in my mouth.  The taste is one of the worst parts of the whole ordeal, in my opinion.  Not sure if I said that at all already, and it probably won't be the last time.  It is really bad.  The doctor told me that my white blood count was the lowest it has been, in fact it was almost nothing.  This makes my plan to wear a mask in the airplane/airport sound like a even better idea.  I looked up some ways I could increase the count and will try some I think.  Hopefully it is up for my next chemo.

Tomorrow Taylor and I will take off from Grand Forks and land in Las Vegas a couple hours later where we will be met by her grandparents.  From there we will drive down to Lake Havasu City, AZ, where we will spend our week of spring break.  One thing Taylor and I are excited for is to dine at In-and-Out burger again.  Being in the nice warm weather will be really good.