Sorry for the delay in updating this. The holidays at Coach kept me crazy busy.
The original treatment plan for my Daddy was canceled. He is no longer going to do radiation since the tumor is too large so they started him on chemo December 17th. I'm unsure of the exact names of the chemo but every three weeks he goes in for a four hour infusion. The first hour is hydration and then a diuretic. Then they infuse him with this red, jelly-like chemo, which takes about five minutes. Then there is about an hour drip of another kind of chemo followed by a final hour of hydration. The third kind of chemo is chemo to go! He wears a cylindrical tube about a foot long that is hooked up to his port. He gets this changed once a week. While being in the infusion center, he gets to relax in a big, green, comfy share complete with flat screen TV, and a fridge full of ice cream, jell-o, soup and juices and sodas. My parents bought themselves an iPad to occupy the time as well.
The first session they showed us a video on chemotherapy and potential side effects and what to do. The only side effect that my dad has really been experiencing is constipation. The nausea medicine they gave him really helps out with that so unless he forgets to take the drugs, he is fine.
Treatment and everything was going well until New Years Even when he went in to get his tube changed. They always do blood work each week to check his levels. Unfortunately, they discovered that he had a fever and a horribly low white blood count. They deemed this an emergency situation and admitted him to the hospital with nutrapenic fever. But, he felt completely fine! Fortunately this was a good weekend for football so my dad was well entertained and my mom, sisters and I visited him often. I watched TCU in the Rose Bowl with my Daddy at the hospital but I was still sad he was in a hospital to bring in the New Year, but he was ok with it. They pumped him with antibiotics all weekend to bring his fever down and enhance his white blood cell count. Anytime a patient has a fever over 100.5 it is room for major concern. He has been doing well since this incident. He didn't get the week of his chemo-to-go but they proceeded with chemo treatment the following Friday with the four hour infusion and his new chemo-to-go. They reduced the strength of the chemo by 10% because of the nutrapenic fever incident.
Another most commonly known side effect of chemo is losing your hair. About two weeks ago his hair started to come out during bath time and sleep. Just little by little. It progressively got worst and I suggested shaving it. My coworker at Coach, who is battling breast cancer, shaved her head right away because it was traumatic for her to lose her hair. Well, it was traumatic for my dad as well. My mom said that as she shaved it he started to cry ... but then when she was all done, he looked in the mirror and laughed. It didn't look that bad! Take a look!
Great shirt right? haha. Well, I woke up that morning and my mom warned me before I saw my dad. I was shocked ... it doesn't look bad at all but it is different. Apparently when I was really little and my dad shaved his mustache I got VERY upset. She had me send the pic to the sisters and his brothers. Uncle Tom replied with this picture:
haha, with the caption of should I continue or leave it?
Then he sent this one:
"All done! LIVESTRONG BIG BROTHER!"
Such brotherly love! All the way from Wisconsin! My one sister said it brought tears to her eyes and we both agreed that we love Daddy but aren't going to shave our heads for him. :-)
