Another Busy Week!

Sorry about the time shift below, but this is what is happening.

Monday we went down to the hospital and did a swallowing test (no mechanical problem) and a pre-anesthesia test (cleared for takeoff).

But the nausea is real, people. He's been nauseated and not wanting to eat for weeks. We haven't been able to get a handle on it and he needs all of his energy for the treatment that's coming. Yesterday both doctors we saw told him to eat. I reached out to the nurse coordinator in our oncologist's office to say that the doctors are telling us that it's urgent that we get his nausea under control. The hospital doctors prescribed different drugs than our primary or our primary oncologist. And then one of the drugs, Ativan, did not make it into the Walgreens system. So I was calling our insurance agency, our primary oncologist and the pharmacy to try to get it.

I also reached out to say "Hey, please just tell me what to do and we'll do it". This worked. The nurse on our team sent a list with times and drugs that we had on hand that we could take. And she also sent a second list of times and drugs for when we got the Ativan. As soon as we started giving him Compazine, his nausea started to settle down. And we alternate that with Zofran and Ativan now that it made it to Walgreens (three days after prescribed) every 2-3 hours until bedtime.

Yesterday (Tuesday) was a good day. We learned that mrguy will also be getting immunotherapy -- Keytruda and Herceptin. His overall chemo cocktail will be 5 medications. I am grateful that they will give it all at once, rather than staggering it every other week. 

In addition, yesterday mrguy said that he was not as nauseated, and he asked for and ate half of a turkey sandwich and some soup, in addition to Boost and Gatorade. He seems to be liking the Gatorade, and hydration is doing him good. For whatever reason his blood sodium is almost normal (and we stopped taking the sodium pills, which were giving him the trots).

Today (Wednesday) we got up at 4:30 and went down to the hospital for his mediport procedure at 6:45am. Mrguy was so alert and a little talkative on the drive to the hospital, which was super helpful and cheery.

On the way home he started talking about his next turkey sandwich. He ate half a sandwich like a champ, and a big chocolate chip cookie. You have no idea how amazing that is and how much it cheers me. He seems to be feeling so much better. F his primary (and us, kinda) for not taking the nausea more seriously.

Tomorrow is his first official chemo day, and then we have to return the Folfox pump (and mrguy on Saturday). As I said to mrguy yesterday, this is the last week for a while where we're doing things for the first time. After that we're doing some of those things for the second time and that will reduce the anxiety, or mine at least.