Chemotherapy and other everyday events

There are no relevant illustrations for this
post, so here's a picture of us from about a year ago.

Lindy had his infusion yesterday. Plugged into Herceptin (trastuzumab), Eloxatin (oxaliplatin), and installed with a pump/drip setup for Xeloda (capecitabine). Tomorrow he'll have the gizmo removed. He has a port placed just below his left shoulder (in exactly that spot where a woman might like to lie her head under her husband's arm. Since I sleep on the left, this has proven inconvenient.) I know these names, I know the side effects, I know what foods support their action.

Lindy doesn't. I think he couldn't care less, and I prefer it that way. Maybe it's simply a matter of pride that I know these words and their characteristics by heart. Lindy only knows that he leaves oncology in a kind of fog, feeling, as we say, a bit oogie.

For three or four days he gets to eat what he wants. I make good food available, of the plant and animal variety, but it is simply foolish to try to influence him. Everyone tells me he needs protein for strength. What he will accept and what he will reject is anyone's guess, but adding heat to anything makes it more palatable for him. The only predictable thing is that he will eat less.

Considering all the frightening stories we hear about the effects of chemo (indeed, people preferring to die than go through it again), Lindy's reaction seems mild. If he feels nauseous he takes an anti-nausea pill, but he hasn't had to since the first round. He takes valium at night to counteract the steroid they give him at chemo. We have figured out how to arrange his tubes and pump so that he can sleep. Still, it's liberating when he gets the damn thing removed after 2 days.

Lindy at his crankiest, the day of
brain surgery

He is more cranky than usual, and more tired. He hits a wall in the afternoon, much like I did when I was pregnant. It's the sleep imperative. But he still works, conducts his business on the phone, and is slightly less available to the various people he works with.

I don't know if this is going to get worse. I'd like to know if the effects are cumulative.

He had a brain MRI last week that came up with nothing new from the post-surgery scan. That's good news. I might put off investigating frankincense and brain cancer, but I do want to continue to see what I can learn about tangerine peel.

What bothers Lindy most is the uncertainty about what is actually happening to the tumor. We expect a CAT scan sometimes over the next month. Then we'll see.

Oh: his white and red blood cell counts are slightly up. Was it the liver?

Lisa