Update on Al #23

Finally, some actual good news. The 'nausea' appears to be gone. Hopefully for good! After two of the longest, nastiest weeks of MY life (imagine how it's been for AL!), we saw the PA in Dr. Beck's office yesterday morning. She just sat down with Al and TALKED to him, asking him how he's feeling -- what about this, that, and the other thing? He explained he only felt truly nauseous once or twice; the problem was incredible acid on his stomach. Resa explained that chemo (and to some extent, the radiation) does that -- increasing stomach acid production -- and recommended Prevacid, sending us home with some samples.

He came home and took one immediately, and was relieved within an hour to an INCREDIBLE degree!!! Instead of having chemo in their office, they had him go to the hospital to their infusion therapy department to get his chemotherapy (in case of another allergic reaction). Though they changed the chemo drug from Taxol to Taxitern (I'm sure I'm spelling these wrong, but I haven't bothered to find out), he still had a similar reaction -- tingling from his infusion port, whch spread across his chest. And they gave him an anti-allergan with a couple of bags of saline to resolve that problem and help to re-hydrate him, then he came over to the Cancer Center for his radiation treatment and visit with Dr. Perez-Tamayo. She reminded him to stay out of the sun -- mostly, I think, because his actual COLOR had finally returned to his skin tones!!! (Even Al commented Sunday on how ghastly white he had gotten.)

So the bad news is that he'll have no chemo this week, and when Dr. Beck returns from vacation Monday, we'll be looking forward to seeing what he's going to do next. We were rather anxious that Al's allergic to CHEMOTHERAPY, but were reassured by the other oncologist (Dr. Cathcart-Rake) in the office that there are other chemo drug options for trachea cancer, so not to worry.

The good news is that Al is BACK. After two weeks of wondering whether he could manage this treatment -- expecting "it's only going to get worse!" -- and trying to get him to take on fluids and eat SOMETHING, his appetite is back to full force (we had lunch in a RESTAURANT today!!! -- thanks, Rich!), his ornery is on overload, and Mr. Fix-It is back!!! =) In the past 24 hours, he's replaced the kitchen faucet, returned the old faucet to the store, delivered our old bathroom medicine cabinet to a friend and visited with him, had the propane refilled -- after attempting to prepare our supper (my favorite, salmon!) last night on the grill and running out -- visited with Randy & the guys at the shop, pulled and cleaned a bowlful of radishes, weeded I don't know what, and rebooted the dishwasher (unusual for him!).

Now, keep in mind that ONE of those things has been impossible for him to ATTEMPT in the past two weeks, because he's been unable to keep food or liquids down. The change is dramatic and amazing, and believe me, I am thankful!!!

Meanwhile, I'm trying to catch up on my energy store. I've had my naps after work the past two days, and can say I'm actually caught up again at work. My boss and co-workers have been completely supportive, which I'm incredibly thankful for; I can't imagine working through all this without that luxury. With a little extra sleep thrown in this week, I should be reasonably normal again by the weekend.

Al will have daily radiation treatments through the week, then lab work early on Monday again, a visit with Dr. Beck, and we expect chemo followed by radiation on Monday, continuing with radiation for the rest of the weekdays. According to my calculations, today was radiation #14 of 38 treatments, so we're getting there!!! His throat has not been sore (except from the nausea), which everybody is very relieved about. His appetite is VERY good -- did I mention he's lost 20 pounds in the past four weeks? So I'm thinking we'll be getting him built back up a bit in the next several days.

Anywho, I'm going to sign off for tonight after thanking all of you for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers.

xoxoxo
Sharon