First treatment

I'm sitting here with Randy, at the Oncology office, while he takes his first chemo treatment.

Back up to Monday. We meet with the nurse practitioner who went over test and scan results. Heart and lung tests came back good, but the PET scan did show cancer has spread some. Some being in his chest and under his left arm. The big kicker was/is the tumor that has grown from the infected lymph node, has grown around his veins and other lymph nodes. Staging him at 2a. Not horrible news, not the best, but still very CURABLE! Yes you read that right, this cancer has an over 90% cure rate. Woohoo!!

So here we are at his first chemo treatment. This is the first of at least 8 treatments. Each treatment consists of 4 different chemo drugs, all having different side effects. They start him out with a bag of nausea meds and steroids. Then the nurse comes in with all the chemo drugs. We should be here about 3 hours, every other week. After the first 4 treatments, 8 weeks, he'll have another CT scan and PET scan. This will tell us if the first rounds of chemo have worked/killed the cancer cells. If it comes back negative he will have 4 more treatments of the same 4 drugs, just to make sure they get it all. If the scan shows there are still some cancer cells present they will switch him to a different set of chemo drugs and possible radiation.

So far so good. He only got a little nauseous with the first drug but now he's doing fine. Just sitting here watching the Olympics. They say the side effects/lethargy usually kick in around day 5-7.

As soon as he's finished, we'll go get the kiddos from school, spend an hour or so with them then take them back. We actually have a date night planned tonight! The kid's school is hosting a parents night out, so Randy and I are going to the horse show!

I'll keep you all posted on everything. It may take me a little while to report but I'll try to keep everyone up to speed.

Happy Weekend!!