Newly Diagnosed, Colon, Liver Lungs

I took a very tired and run down woman to her treatments today. She was markedly improved post treatment. I think it is the hyperbaric 02 that charges her up.

She had a rough night with nausea and abdominal pains. The nausea meds took care of that.

She slept after the IV while waiting for the Hyperbolic chamber and I am sure that it helped. They added some bicarbonate to the IV solution and that made it less stingy. We are going to get blood drawn tomorrow for G6PD and hopefully we can increase the Vitamin C next visit.

The neuropaty comes and goes. She is taking a supplement called Glutamine Powder for seven to ten days following her Chemo. She raves about how it diminishes the neuropathy. She is pretty gassed now and heading off to bed. Her SpO2 was 98. That made me happy!

Yesterday was Chemo 3. This was a much better experience. The Lidocain ointment over the port an hour prior to hook up worked very well to numb it. A dab of cream and some plastic over it to hold it against the skin. The oxilaplatin didn't seem to hit her as hard this time. Her color changed a little but not as dramatically as last time. She didn't sleep at all during the treatment this time.  At the end of the treatment the cold sensitivity had set in and it was gloves on.

I had hot soup for  her during her infusion and she took that well and had a good appetite when she got home. I made her a lamburger for dinner. Lamb is a pretty high calorie meat and she had that and some asparagus and mixed veggies. It has been only the last four or five days that her appetite was such that she really wanted to eat anything. We got about 1700 calories into her yesterday which was pretty good. I would like to see it higher but it is a challenge.

The neuropathy was there too. I mixed her up some glutamine powder in water and it seemed to help pretty quickly. She really swears by that stuff. It was from her holistic oncologist as one of her supplements, 2X per day for 7 - 10 days following chemo.

Important safety tip! She made a smoothie last night and forgot about the cold milk. It hit her throat and the cold caused her throat to spasm. Her breathing became very difficult with exhalation OK but inhalation a real struggle. This lasted about a minute and then subsided. It was very frightening to witnesss and I can only imagine what it was like to experience.

No nausea so far this time around. Her energy is much better that the last two. She napped for about two hours yesterday when she got home. She is doing much more on her own following this treatment.

Sleep has been a problem. She wakes up every night at around 0300 until around 0500. Her holistic Doc told her that this is the time that the liver heals and with her liver mets I wonder... It is a rare night that she sleeps through the night.

Supplemental O2, 15 - 30 min at 2 liters seems to help her feel better.

Pump is off tomorrow and Holistic 5 is on Thursday.

Dan

This has been an interesting cycle. As I mentioned in my earlier post, my wife was not so badly impacted energy wise from this round immediately following chemo. She also didn't bounce back with energy very quickly either. She had really bad constipation which was very painful and took several days to get under control. We are heading that off for round for with some preemptive Mirilax. The Neuropathy was worse this round as well. By Wednesday night, after the pump was removed, she didn't feel well enough to face the ride to Portsmouth Thursday. Well, Thursday came and we went anyways. Following Vitamin C and Oxygen she had improved quite a bit and was very happy that she went.

She did feel a bit better over the weekend and she had a chiropractic appointment on Monday. She felt better following her adjustments and the Chiro - applied kinesology - muscle tested her on the Rick Simpson Oil. She tested very strong for that and it built our conficence to try it, but we haven't built up the nerve to try it yet.  She had her energy healing session in the afternoon and felt much better after that. I worked her off chemo week and she did well caring for herself and the dog while I was at work. Chemo brain continued to be a problem.

For her off week holistic treatment she had the maximum dose of Vitamin C IV and we both fell asleep waiting for the hyperbaric chamber. She was good through hyperbaric oxygen and very much invigorated following the treatment!  The ride home went well and she continued to gain energy. Her energy continued to improve and she was much stronger going into the weekend. She was almost like her old self. It was such a relief for our children and her family to see her doing so well. Her mother is 80 and is having trouble watching her first born go through this.

And now it is Sunday morning and in 24 hours we will be back in the infusion center for round 4. She has not made up her mind to try icing during chemo so we will put that off for another time if she changes her mind. She really laments her hair loss wich is gradual but steady.

The Friday labs did have some good information for us. Her AST and ALT dropped considerably. AST is in the normal range and ALT is high but not nearly as high. Being new at this I am looking at this as quite positive. From my perspective it was nice to look at a lab and not get bad news. It got to the point where I could hardly bear to look at a lab or report for fear of what bad news would come next. I hope and pray that this bit of good news becomes a trend.

Dan

worriedson714 said:

vitamin d and c

Question does vitamin d and c help in pill form also or does it have to be IV ? we can't afford the hollistic doctors so just curious . 

The vitamin D3 that my wife gets is oral, 2,000 mcg. The vitamin C is IV and is a dose to large to give orally. I misplaced my notes so I cannot give you the doseage at this time.

abita said:

I had an allergic reaction to

I had an allergic reaction to oxaliplatin on my 5th or 6th infusion also.

Abita: Do you remember what they switched you to? We are not sure what will be next. We have another infusion appointment for May 24th. As harsh as the Oxalplatin was it was working so we are a little disappointed. But then, maybe this is a good thing, to attack with another chemical that the cancer has not had an opportunity to mutate against. The Doc mentioned a couple of other drugs and mentioned different side effects but it was all Greek to me!