Round one - Done!

Joe finished up his first round of treatment on Friday!

He is officially done with radiation, and he gets a 2 week break from chemotherapy to rest up and get a bit stronger before he starts a more potent cocktail of chemo drugs.

The doctors, nurses and office staff at the radiation office were awesome, and I think Joe will actually miss them a little bit (but definitely not enough that he wants to see them again!). They have a tradition in their office that when somebody completes their final radiation treatment, all the doctors and nurses gather around and watch as the patient rings a bell. Inscribed in the bell is the message "This bell rings for all who walked this path" and at the bottom of the bell are the words "Courage - Hope - Faith - Strength - Triumph - Love."

  

Seven weeks ago, when we met with radiation oncologist for the first time, we saw another patient ring this bell. At the time,  it seemed like forever before Joe would be the one ringing the bell. Some days it does feel like forever ago that things were 'normal,' but some days it feels like these past few weeks have flown by.

Joe is anxious to start his next round of treatment. We are praying that it is an effective regimen and that the side effects are minimal.

-Jess

Paracentesis... What's all the hype about?

After a number of these swell procedures and a little online research I've come up with some conclusions - This has to be the closest thing to man-pregnancy as humanly possible, and you moms are TOUGH AS HELL!!!

Right now I'm producing a little over a half a liter of fluid per day. One liter weighs approximately 2.2 lbs, so on an average week I gain just under 9 lbs. which is basically going from inception to the third trimester in a week. Leading up to my last paracentesis, I was so uncomfortable that I slept less than ten hours and took in less than 1500 calories over a 72 hour period. It was a sucky couple of days.

The man-idural.
They clean and prep the area before inserting the catheter. At this point I know relief is just minutes away, but conversely, I also know that what they are about to do isn't very comfortable, so my heart rate still jumps.

The man-livery.
The picture above is four liters worth of cancer juice, not exactly the bundle of joy you want to hand out cigars for. Once they started the pump it took about 20 minutes to drain my abdomen. It was such a relief that I actually fell asleep after the first half liter was removed.

 
I USUALLY feel pretty good when it's all said and done, but the problem is when you rapidly gain four liters and then take it out even faster, it tends to rearrange a few things as you can see in the "before" picture above.

Check your butts people, you don't want cancer juice!

Side Effects Suck

When Joe started chemo a few weeks ago, they gave us a binder full of reading material on his treatments. It's basically the cancer patients equivalent of "What to Expect When You Are Expecting" .........but not nearly as exciting. Probably 85% of the material in this binder talks about the side effects of chemotherapy. We have all heard about these dreaded side effects ....nausea, hair loss, fatigue, etc, but after reading through the book we were made aware of so many other things (difficulty breathing, mouth sores, highly susceptible to infections, and on and on). Not going to lie...some of it is pretty scary.

Three weeks into his chemo regimen, Joe had yet to experience any of these side effects. We started to think that maybe he would get lucky and not have any at all, but unfortunately we must have jinxed him, because last week the side effects caught up with him. It has primarily been the nausea which is giving him the most trouble. He has since gotten a prescription for anti-nausea medicine that helps, but some days are still pretty sucky. His Doctors have been very adamant about him maintaining his weight, but that is difficult to do when your lunch consists of a pain pill and an anti-nausea pill :(

There is one other side effect that Joe just can't seem to shake....hiccups. After consulting with Dr. Google, we confirmed that this is a pretty common side effect. Apparently chemo has a sense of humor! (Seriously he is sitting next to me on the couch hiccuping away....I can't help but laugh!)

By the way, have I mentioned that the chemo regimen that he is on is called 5-FU. Kind of ironic right?

Even though the chemo totally sucks and is getting harder on Joe, we think/hope it is getting even harder on the cancer. Joe is happy to pop another anti-nausea pill,  and hold his breath for 30 seconds to try and rid himself of these hiccups, if this is what it will take to beat this.

- Jess

One Month

It has been only one month since Joe was diagnosed with cancer (sometimes it seems like forever ago). Since then, he has had:

• 13 radiation treatments
• 13 days on chemotherapy 
• 5 Paracentisis procedures 
• 16.7 liters of fluid drained from his abdomen
• 11 doctors appointments
• 3 scans
• at least 20 needle pokes

(So now there is no denying how nerdy I am to keep track of all of this!)

While this is undeniably sucky, we have also had countless people sending prayers, good vibes, and well wishes our way. We believe that all this GOOD will definitely outweigh the sucky-ness. We are so appreciative for all the prayers, messages, and offers of help that we have received. It truly makes such a big difference in this journey.

-Jess