Long time ago and Far Far Away!

A long time has passed since November 30.  That was the last time I have written a post on this Blog.  In that post I wrote I got a call from U of M wanting to talk about next steps. I called them back a few days later and talked with one of the Nurses in my Doctor's department.  She told me that My doctor (who was a liver surgeon and professor of general surgery) was no longer with them.   I don't know if that means he is no longer in that department or if He left U of M for another Job.  Either way what this does mean is I have a new Doctor at the U of M.  I am meeting with him February 20 and he wants to see a CT scan of my chest, abdomen, and pelvis.

In my last post I also talked about nausea and that they and reduced the amount of one of my chemo drugs.  I have had plenty of nausea and vomiting since that treatment.  I met with the PA on Dec 19 and brought up the issue of Vomiting and explained this happened always the night of treatment and was pretty much over by the next day.  They had previously prescribed a steroid for days 2 - 4.  After much discussion between the PA and me she suggested a path of taking Ativan earlier and often.  Ativan is normally used as an anti anxiety medication.  In my case this is used to combat nausea.  This usually works for me by making me less anxious, comfortable, and sleepy.  Dec 26th they gave me Ativan in IV form near the beginning of treatment.  As a result I slept through most of my treatment waking up just in time to go home.  I returned to sleeping when I got home and slept through most of the night that Thursday.  That is very unusual since the steroids usually keep me awake most of Thursday night.  I did end up vomiting once during the night but that beats the 3 times I normally did during each of the previous treatments.  I did end up sleeping most of the time from Thursday through Sunday with very short breaks to eat.

My next treatment is a week from yesterday.  I also meet with my oncologist in 3 weeks.  For now I Function normally for a week, then keep the couch company for a week.  I don't expect much to change until I meet with the Doc in February.  So for now Status Quo until the new scan is taken.

--Kent