2nd Day of Chemo At Home

Steve completed his 3rd round of Chemo on Friday and it went well again.  We are very thankful that he’s not getting very sick with these treatments and I hope that continues to be the case.  He only had a few minor side effects once again… tired tingling in fingers when he touches cold stuff chills at night just one night (we noticed it again this time so it must be a side effect – but no fever) loss of appetite stomach was slightly upset but he took an anti-nausea pill and it helped and made him hungry And that’s about it.  The two pictures in this post are of the portable chemo unit and the bag it’s in.  It’s small so it doesn’t get…

As a parent, the last thing we ever want to do is see our children hurt. We’ve raised our girls with so much love and protection in the hopes that they would always feel safe with us. As a family, we’ve been through a lot the past 23 months and we’ve tried to be as honest as we could with the girls, letting them know along the way how much we love them and that everything would always be “okay”. Today we had to do the hardest thing ever… today we told the girls that the chemo isn’t working and the tumors are still growing. And even though daddy was going to continue on chemo the next 6 months, ultimately it’s just to get more…

This week Steve completed his 5th round of chemo and he’s still doing really well. The tingling in his fingers started almost immediately when he touched anything cold.  Even when he washes his hands, if the water is a little cold, they start to tingle.  Or when he got up at the infusion center to use the men’s room, he has to push the IV to the bathroom.  The handle on it is metal and it’s so cold inside the infusion center, that the handle gets cold.  So even that bothered him.  It’s extremely irritating and he gets very frustrated with it.  Even though he knows in the whole scheme of things, it’s not the worst thing, it’s still pretty irritating. I remember before I…

I  forgot to mention in my previous post that the CT Scan also showed that the inflammation of his colon and the small perforation in the colon that they saw last time, is no longer visible.  So that means that part healed.  That made us VERY HAPPY because that means surgery is not in the future again… which is a good thing.  Surgery is not something we want because that means no chemo for at least 6 weeks after and perhaps even more.  Right now Chemo is what he needs. That was my Christmas Gift! 

When we arrived at the infusion center today, they didn’t have the new orders for Steve’s reduction in the 5-FU chemo.  Thankfully she mentioned out loud that due to his weight loss, she needed to call the doctor to have him adjust his meds.  We told her that the Doctor said he was reducing one of them and she noticed she still had the old orders.  Glad we were paying attention. It took about an hour but he called in the right orders and he began chemo #7.   We did figure out which one the 5-FU is – it’s the one that he comes home with.  Before we leave they give him a push of it into his IV to give him a big dose…

My families world was turned upside down in June 2014.  I’ve decided to share it here on our family blog to possibly help someone going through the same thing.  I’ve searched high and low for months for support groups and finally found one online.  I have so many questions and concerns that really only someone who’s gone through this, can help with. Here is our story: On Friday May 30, 2014 my husband Steve came home complaining of chest pains.  He was thinking he had gas and then ate dinner.  After dinner it didn’t get any better so he stayed home while I took Holly to her softball game.  I made him promise me that if it got worse, he’d take an aspirin.  He assured…