Today was a good day but...

I'm not gonna lie about it, chemo freaking sucks. Attached to tubes. Urine turns pink from one of the drugs. Get home and you can smell the drugs permeating your skin. Even had some issues with the pump and some temporary but painful burning of my veins. Watching poison go into your body is not fun at all. I'm still positive about it, but I won't hide the fact that it's not fun and felt good to get some tears out today.

But today was a good day. Despite being poisoned with toxins (less of one drug because of one of the counts on a liver enzyme) we got some good news and good feedback today. When Doc came in he asked how things were going and how I recovered from the first round of chemo. I told him and said that I was really hopeful that it is the same for future treatments, but also realistic that it will get harder. The nice thing was that he said that typically your first treatment is a good indication of what future treatments will be like. The thing they normally notice is increased fatigue - I can deal with that and its great that Alex and CBRE is really supportive of me if I need to take time off or work from home. Then Doc asked if I noticed decreased swelling in my neck. I told him that I thought so, I could still feel some hard lymph glands, but also dont know if part of it for me is realizing that one of the large ones was removed with the biopsy (which is fine since that is less cancer in me). Well, Doc said that he was really surprised how much the swelling has gone away. "I can see a major difference. I really can. This is looking really good and it tells me that your body is really responding to the chemo. And to think this is after only one half of a cycle - only one treatment."

As you can imagine, Sarah and I really liked hearing this. I think it's a good sign that I'm responding to the chemo, but more than ever, with how surprised Doc was, this just shows how amazing the power of prayer, love, and happiness are. St. Peregrine is doing great things and with your continued support and prayer we are going to continue on this rough road that has been made easier. "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matthew 11:30

I asked if that means that maybe we could do the PET Scan earlier and then maybe only need to have 5 cycles instead of 6, but unfortunately that wont happen. They want to cure me and they believe that they can based on the protocol that is proven to work. Not that I want extra chemo that beats me up, but I'd rather get better to live a long life. We also asked if we could get a referral to the SCCA (Seattle Cancer Care Alliance) which is basically one of the top oncology research/treatment centers in the nation (it's an alliance of the Fred Hutch Research, UW Med, and others). Doc looked like a sad puppy that we weren't happy with our treatment and we felt really bad. We said that we are EXTREMELY happy with our medical team, but it has been recommended just to get that added insight to verify. Well we still think we are going to but then we found out even more info... good info...

If this happened 2 years ago (and I'm really glad it didn't since now I have the most amazing wife and extended family) and we went to the SCCA for a second opinion we would have met with Dr. Chen (our current doctor) since at that time he was leading research for Hodgkin's Lymphoma with a major amount of grant money. So basically, for Hodgkin's we've got one of the top doctors in the area.

Tonight I feel a little bit more fatigued than the first session. Not sleeping, but still feels nice to just lay on the couch and relax. Might be a good night to put in Cool Runnings. Just ate some dinner, was craving chow main noodles and pot stickers. Was yummy. Had some edamame on the side. So far so good. It's actually helped a little bit to settle my stomach. Doesn't feel like there is a little man in there punching and kicking the walls of my stomach anymore.

Chemo sucks but we are beating down that cancer to nothing. It's like a pack of dogs on a 3 legged cat. Cancer doesn't stand a chance!!!

St. Peregrine, pray for us and all battling cancer.

Keep praying!
-Andrew