Brendan's Blog

One Man. One Dream. One Ball.

Round 1

I debuted a new hairstyle around the house…to mixed reviews.

Shaved my head in a pre-emptive strike.  This post will be updated as round 1 continues.

Week 1

Week 1 is the most intensive week of a round where I spend the day in the hospital receiving all three chemotherapy drugs (Bleomycin, Etoposide, and Cisplatin).  So far, I believe I’m responding relatively well to the treatments.  The anti-nausea pre-meds they’re giving me seem to be doing the job, so that’s a relief.  Apart from that I have some acid reflux/chest pains for which I’ve started taking some medication.

My chief complaint is a lack of energy.  I’m sleeping far more than I’m used to and have a hard time focusing.  While I’m feeling pretty good all things considered, I definitely don’t feel quite like myself.  I’m hopeful that the lighter treatments in weeks 2 and 3 will give me a bit of time to normalize.  My oncologist joked that it’s spaced so that you start to feel better JUST in time to start the next round.

Weeks 2 and 3

Weeks 2 and 3 have been much easier than week 1.  While there was some more waiting in the lobby than I would have hoped, the short Bleomycin pushes on Mondays did not seem to take too much energy out of me.

Unfortunately, the beginning of Round 2 is contingent upon my response to Round 1.  The oncologist doesn’t want to start Round 2 when my immune system is already significantly weakened.  My blood work indicates that my neutrophil count is still lower than they would like it to be to proceed with chemo.  My sample was taken 5 days before the start of Round 2 and the oncologist wanted to give my immune system the extra time to rebound before deciding whether to proceed.  If my neutrophil count is not up by Monday, I will have to delay Round 2 by a week.

 

In other news, my hair has started to fall out very rapidly.  At this point, I’m mostly bald.  My eyebrows are still around for the time being thankfully.  To try to clean up this process I had to ask my lovely wife to give my head another trim.  As you can see, she was more than willing to help!

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5 Comments

  1. All in for Week 1! You can do it. 🙂

  2. It looks great

  3. Whoa, what a difference. You go from looking like a friendly American to a power hitting outfielder from the DR.

  4. Looking as handsome as ever!

  5. Just found your blog.
    We are rooting for you from Australia.
    You can do it!!

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