I'm all heart

The findings of my MUGA scan are in:
 
FINDING:
The right ventricle chamber is normal in size. The left ventricular chamber is at the upper limits of normal size. There are no focal wall motion abnormality. The left ventricular ejection fraction is computed at 66%, which is within normal limits (normal greater or equal to 50%). The range is 64-68%. ECG demonstrates regular rhythm and normal gating.
 
IMPRESSION:
1. NORMAL BIVENTRICULAR FUNCTION AT REST.
2. NORMAL LVEF – 66%
 

Post Chemo Saturday

Once again, no big problems with the chemo. I woke up this morning and played some Dungeon Siege II, then Ali and Geeven came over, picked me up, and we went into town for gyros, bubble tea, and comics. We also stopped at the Univeristy Bookstore and I bought another 4 books for my to-read pile.

Stomach feels a bit upset now, as I sit on my couch, so I took some ativan. If it gets worse, I also have some steroids I can take, but I don’t think it’ll get to that point.

It’s just my luck that freaking nobody’s around this weekend. Dave’s got the whole usual crew all tied up with puzzle/game helping and Vick and Heather are both out of town. Of course, I can just see this as an opportunity to get some stuff done — like reading the 6 books I’ve purchased in the last week or so.

Time to get on that!

Chemo 2/6 complete

After spending a morning in meetings, I went for a delightful lunch with Heather (Indian Buffet followed by Ice Cream Cow Chips) and negotiated the vending of Dungeon Siege II. So that was a thumbs up outing if I’ve ever had one.
 
I dropped Heather back at The Code Mines and swapped her for Ali, who hanged out at The Hutch with me while I got my infusion. My neutrophils are back with a vengeance! They went from 420 / uL to 17,240 / uL (normal is 1800-7000).
 
So I’m pretty much indestructible at this point.
 
Anyway, the infusion was uneventful. I’m back home now. Just had a couple of slices of leftover pizza and 7 of the crazy vitamins my mother sent. I feel fline. The side effects don’t really start to hit until tomorrow, but hopefully I can manage some gyros and comics anyway.

I think I'm onto something with this hair..

Since all my hair is expected to fall out, as with a ficus, any day now, I figured I would do something unlikely with it.
 
So now, with Ali’s help, I have cool blue hair. This was the night of the coloring and my hair was seriously blue then.
 
 
The next day, being saturday, I went into town to get a gyro, some bubble tea, and my comic books. Yes, I read comic books. I read lots of things. Vick was along as usual, as were Denise, Ali, Amy, and Dave. Anyway, you can see my blue hair was a big hit. Denise seems to like it. One thing you’ll notice about Denise when you see her in many photos: she’s very photogenic. I, on the other hand, am looking a bit flabby. I think not exercising for a month hasn’t done me any wonders. I still weigh exactly the same (actually a few pounds less) as I did  a month ago, but I’m sure I’ve lost some muscle. I’ve resolved to head back into the club tomorrow, even though my ankle still pains me. It needs to be done!
 
 
Here we are on the way to the gyro place. You can see that even 2 weeks post chemo my hair is thick and luxurious.
 
 
At the end of our time in the U District, Heather joined up with us. She had been promised a movie, but Denise and the lovely day conspired to trick us into going to the zoo instead. It was pretty fun for the first hour or so, but then my ankle started to hurt. By the end of the day, my left foot was in complete disrepair. We had thought to go to the zoo just to kill a couple hours before seeing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the IMAX theater, but that didn’t work out at all. It took a while to get there and we couldn’t have seen much and gone to the movie. We spent a good deal of time searching for baby tigers, only to find they had retired at 2pm. At least we saw some lions and komodo dragons.
 
 
By the time 5 rolled around, a few of us were ready to join the penguins and break out of the zoo. We continued the day at Pacific Place where we ate at Gordon Biersch (sp?). I had a tasty blackened mahi mahi on a bun with cajun remoulade sauce. After eating, we stopped by the bookstore and I bought a few items, one of which is titled How to Read a Book. Obviously, I’ll need to read this one first. At some point in Barnes & Noble, Heather got a phone call and had to bizounce.
 
Sad for the rest of us and for her, for after leaving the bookseller’s, we went to see The Aristocrats at the Cineplex Odeon. It was probably the raunchiest movie I have seen. Ever. But it was also wicked funny. I advise anyone who is not offended and enjoys a good laugh to see this film. However, if you are easily (or even reluctantly) offended, this movie may not be for you. I think everyone I saw it wth other than Dave was at least a bit offended at parts. Of course, I wasn’t, since I am impossible to offend.
 
After the movie, Dave and I got a ride to my house where we watched Stargate: Atlantis. Then Dave left and it was bedtime for Johnzo.
 
You can find more pictures of the blue hair and the zoo over in the photos section of my space.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled chemo…

I went in Friday morning at 8 for my blood work, a MUGA scan, and chemo. The schedule was to be: 8am blood, 8:30 MUGA, 11:30 doctor, 12:30 chemo.
 
Alas, things did not go this way. It wasn’t entirely unexpected that this would happen, but my white blood cell count was too low to begin the chemo. My neutrophils, which apparently are the primary infection fighting cells, were only 420 / uL. The normal range was something like 1800 – 7000 / uL.
 
This means next Tuesday and Wednesday they’ll inject me with growth factors to kick my bone marrow into go mode so by Friday I’ll have enough white blood cells to get the chemo.
 
Then every 2 weeks thereafter on Tuesday and Wednesday I’ll get growth factors before my Friday chemo. So at least now I won’t slip my schedule any more and it’s more well-known so people can schedule their visits to see me.

1 week post chemo – blood counts

I went in to the Hutch and had some blood counts done today. I seem to be operating within normal parameters.
 
This is no guarantee that I’ll continue to have a decent white blood cell count by next Friday, but we’ll see. Dr. Petersdorf said there was "at least a fair to middling chance that my white blood cell count will be too low next Friday to do chemo" and that we’ll have to do growth factors. Let’s hope my marrow toughs it out. I’d rather just press on and get this taken care of.
 
I asked that they do a MUGA scan to get a baseline measurement of my heart function so we can tell if the Adriamycin does any damage. So they’re going to do that next week as well. And next time I get the blood work done, they’ll also check my liver enzymes to see how they’re doing. w00t!

Feeling Fine

The weekend went well. Ed, Ed’s fiancee Elaine, my mom and Jon were all in town. I had only very slight nausea and no vomiting. I felt worst on Sunday and Monday, but I was back at work on Monday.
 
Yesterday I felt pretty good and today I think I feel 100%. Though with my memory, I might just not remember what 100% feels like from a week ago.
 
When I feel my neck it feels like the tumors have shrunk a ton. I guess I could just be out of my mind, but I don’t think so. They feel at least 50% smaller.
 
Anyway, this Friday I’ll have a blood count to see how ye olde white blood cells are doing and then next Friday is my next scheduled chemo treatment. This time it should only take 3 hours, thank goodness. They’ll give me a blood test first and if my white blood cells are doing ok, shoot me up. If they aren’t, then they’ll give me some growth factors to stimulate the very marrow of my bones (which apparently, will hurt) and then give me my infusion of poisons the following Friday.
 
So let’s all hope that I don’t need any growth factors. Go go gadget marrow!

Chemotherapy — day 1

Jeebus.
 
So first I go to UW Medical Center at 8am to make a deposit, just in case. That goes fine.
 
Then I go to the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance at the Hutch for a blood draw at 9:30am. They say, hey, you don’t need a blood draw. Go on up to infusion. I wasn’t supposed to start infusion until 10:30, but I went up anyway. They told me I actually wans’t scheduled for infusion until 1pm. Great. So after waiting around there until 10:50 or so, they eventually figure out that they have no idea who called me and told me to come at 9:30 and that 1pm is definitely the best time.
 
So my mom, Jon, and I go to Coastal Kitchen for brunch, which was very tasty if highly caloric. Then we went back to the Hutch at 1pm for my infusion. I get a room pretty quickly and lie down. Basically what’s supposed to happen at this point is for them to give me an IV, some anti-nauesa drugs, a test dosse of one of the chemo drugs (the Bleo), and then wait an hour to see if I have an allergic reaction to the Bleo. Then they’d push the rest of the Bleomycin, Adriamycin, and Vinblastine and then give the Dacarbazine as a drip.
 
This whole process should have taken about 4 hours starting at 1pm. But they were busy. Someone showed up 5 hours late to their appointment and so I didn’t end up getting out of there until 7pm. Sheesh. They assure me in the future it will take only about 3 hours from sit down to get up & leave.
 
Anyway, no crazy side effects yet. I do have a bit of an upset stomach and maybe the slightest twinge of nausea. I just took some ativan to help with that and am on some other crazy anti nausea drug called Ondansetron (brand name, Zofran), which is $250 for 6 pills (but of course MSFT insurance covers that np). It’s pretty leet the way it works — it selectively blocks serotonin receptors to keep "hey, you should vomit now" messages from reaching the brain.
 
So we went out tonight to Daniel’s Broiler for a tasty steak and chocolate desert. I figure may as well celebrate having no side effects. mmmm good.
 
Now I don’t know if my slight nausea is because of the chemo or the immense foodstuffs. I’m betting the latter.
 
Anyway, I’ll update on my status throughout the weekend. One of the drugs may give me a fever of 102, but so far no fever. We’ll see.
 
Here are some pics of me getting my treatment.
 
Too happy for chemo
 
You have approximately 7 minutes to live.
 
 
7 minutes — think fast!
 
 
 
They put on full hazard gear to handle this stuff.
 
 
Adriamycin is red!
 
 
Mom and Me
 
 
Battery powered IV Drip for bathroom trips np

Off to chemo…

Up early this morning to head in for my first dose of chemotherapy. I’ll be getting ABVD (adriamycin, bleomycin, vinblastine, dacarbazine), which is apparently the "gold standard" of care for stage IA Hodgkin’s.
 
Anyway, time to suit up. I’ll report back later with any immediate notes from the day.

How you should use your powers