Four days of ICE

Well, it's great to be back home today!!  The two days of ICE turned out to be Four days!!!  One of the drugs was a 24 hour drip, and another was 4-6 hours each day for 3 days, so they just keep you in the hospital because you'd end up being there forever anyways!!

I was at Scripps Green Hospital for the ICE chemo, had a nice private room in their bone marrow unit, and the nurses and assistants were very attentive.  The food was pretty good, but practically no fiber so I was a little "backed-up" after four days (better now thank you!!!).  Pretty strong stuff, but so far I'm doing pretty good on it. They give you big doses of anti-nausea meds before, during and after your treatment, and some stuff to protect your bladder.  Today no nausea. I am feeling a few side affects from the neulasta injection, but I was expecting that. The neulasta is to help beef up the production of white cells, because ICE does tend to affect the bone marrow a bit.   The back pain left after the first drug, so this is gooood stuff. The on-duty oncologist, Dr. Miller, showed me where a swollen lymph node in my neck was, and the first day it was like a hard marble, but by the second a lot softer and actually smaller. Now I have trouble finding it again!

I'll go back to the BMT unit Thursday morning at Scripps to get a CBC panel and have Dr. Miller check me out. Then we'll probably make an appointment for at least one more round of ICE the next week or two.  After the 2nd round of ICE, I'll probably get CT/PET scanned again just to see how its going. Depending on that, then its either a 3rd round of ICE, or on to the BMT process over at UCSD.  My doctors in both places seem to be working together better, Dr. Miller actually called Dr. Ball at UCSD to make sure the regimen they had me on was what Dr. Ball wanted!!  So answered prayers all over the place!!

Debbie visited every day, and actually was with me most of the day Tuesday and Thursday. I also had a great visit from the Ewings which was a blessing.  You feel a little isolated sitting in a room all day, so it was great to have the company.

I tried out the clothes and gear I bought for my 3 week BMT hospital stay, and most things worked well. I bought some knit athletic shorts from Wal-mart for 5 bucks each, and they were the perfect thing, comfortable and modesty preserving.  The electric shaver pooped out on me after I had shaved one cheek!! Andrew went and bought me another (and better one) so I wouldn't have to go around half-shaved!!  During the BMT I'll have a central catheter line (Dune fans, think "Harkonnen Heart Plug"), so I won't be able to wear t-shirts. But I have quite a collection of old hawaiian shirts that I'll probably use.

I had my work laptop with me and was able to do a little work after a few glitches. The Scripps IT department's instructions for connecting to their WAN were incomprehensible!!  I tried my Verizon card, but that needed activation, so I sent an email by smart phone and my boss was able get the card going for me. I really needed it the next day to help get a job restarted and reports generated that the sales staff was hot to have. But now I know that for UCSD I'll need to use the broadband card because they don't have WAN access for the patients.

Well I'm getting quite chatty today, so I'll cut it off and save whatever else I have to share in tomorrow's post.

Soli Deo Gloria!!!

Comments

[Dave Kocher]

Thanks for the update. We;re praying for you.