Sue and I met with the Oncologist yesterday, he has set me up to start chemotherapy on Monday morning September 19th.
Tomorrow I head to Frederick Memorial Hospital to have a port installed; this will be done as an outpatient surgery but is performed under general anesthesia. Sue and I arrive at six thirty AM, hopefully leaving sometime mid-afternoon.
On Chemo day, I'll arrive shortly before nine, this procedure, taking place at the FMH Cancer Center in Frederick was originally "advertised" as a two hour visit actually takes about four. After I finish cocktails at FMH, I'll head home to be greeted by a home call nurse whose job will be to "Pump Me Up" with a forty eight hour dose of 5-FU. She'll come back on Wednesday to remove the pump. For anyone interested the entire regiment is named FOLFOX.
As it stands now I will have eight regiments of this spaced out every two weeks. The day after Christmas would be my last treatment date.
Sue and I received some great pointers from one of the nurses yesterday the most interesting one being. "Keep a pair of gloves near the refrigerator just in case you need to get anything out of it".
This is to help with one of the weird side effects of Oxaliplatin which is a hyper sensitivity to cold. No ice cream, cold drinks or cold beers for some time to come after the nineteenth. Guess, if I'm allowed, I'll have to get use to drinking beer Irish Style. (warm)
On top of everything else it appears that I may have "tweaked" my left hamstring. I'm not sure how or when but it's bothered me enough that for the past two days I've had it wrapped up. If I had to do it then perhaps my timing is all right, I really wouldn't want to run in the heavy rains and with the port surgery I wouldn't be able to run for a few days afterwards anyway. This may just be enough time to recover as I don't think the hamstring is too bad.
Another challenge ..... Mike
PS> As I go through this process I am learning that if you want a straight answer, ask a nurse.
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