Changing Direction

Got some better sleep last night. Sleep remains one of the greatest challenges for me at these hospital stays. It is simply nearly impossible to get good sleep when you are checked on every couple of hours for vital signs, getting hooked up or unhooked from chemo, having to constantly pee, etc. That lack of sleep along with the effects of the chemicals catches up and today is the day it seems that fatigue is starting to settle in.

Yesterdays blood draws indicated that my potassium was low so they drew blood again today and my potassium looks to have gotten back to normal overnight.

Today's drug lineup includes Leucovorin, Cytarabine, Sodium Bicarbonate, Zofran, and Decadron. The only new one in this lineup is Leucovorin is a reduced folic acid which is administered following methotrexate where it may "rescue" bone marrow and gastrointestinal mucosa cells from the methotrexate. Leucovorin has only a couple of rare side effects - an allergic reaction and nausea/vomiting.

I am so thankful that Dr. Lee is so good at what he does. He and his partner, Dr. Rovira (who took care of me this week in the hospital), have obviously figured out what it takes to keep things tolerable. Although I know that this will probably be my last posting until next week because of the unavoidable fatigue and not feeling good, there is no doubt in my mind that things would be much worse if not for my doctors and the nurses here at the hospital that carry out their instructions.

I am okay. Just getting to the point where I know from prior experience when things are going to happen. Look for an update sometime next week. Thank you, everyone, for your continued prayers, well wishes and support.

I'll throw out there an idea I had for this blog - because I want it to be valuable to others out there that have cancer, or MCL, or whatever, I would like to make this blog more of an 'open-forum' for anyone that has questions about most anything. Give me ideas to write about, ask me questions, whatever you want would be great - the stories from my life are probably not very interesting, possibly the day-to-day of my cancer isn't that interesting either. Your suggestions for topics would give me something to think about and write about. Those of you that know me certainly might be able to suggest stories I should tell and I'm happy to tell them. But so many of the e-mails I get now are from fellow MCLers and I want to help anyone I can in that group with this blog. I look forward to the challenging subjects you give. And I hope you will.