Treatment underway

I’ve really had a good time with the last few “fun” posts and enjoy having this forum to share with you my experiences, but I did want to take just a moment to update you as to my current treatment progress.

On Tuesday, October 14th I had appointments with my melanoma specialists and her PA. I feel like I am in solid hands with my doctor and she has a great and aggressive treatment strategy in place for me. We also met with our radiation oncologist and will be setting up radiation treatments that will run concomitant with my chemotherapy treatments. The radiation will commence on 10/16/08 and run for 10 days.

We initiated a 28 day chemotherapy regimen. The nice part about this initial phase is that the chemotherapy is in an oral formulation and I take each capsule at night along with a high-dose of anti-nausea medication. Here’s a sobering thought, each capsule of my dose costs roughly about $487.00 (and I dropped last night’s dose…found it pretty quickly-5 second rule applied). Thank goodness for insurance! I’ve always considered myself pretty strong and able to keep my emotions in check but it was pretty difficult looking at myself in the mirror Tuesday evening and taking this medication for the first time. It took a few tears, a prayer, and down it went. My heart ached for all the thousands of people that must be doing the same thing, sharing the same types of feelings that now would be part of my nightly routine. I’ve worked around this disease since 2003 and never would have imagined the emotional impact each step takes on the patient and their families.

10/15/08: we met with the radiation oncology department for our initial set up and calibration for the first treatment session. It’s actually a pretty slick set up and took less than an hour. The techs at MD Anderson are extremely well trained and are very comforting to nervous patients. The set up include making a hard shell mask that stretches over your entire head; this mask is used for each treatment and is literally placed over your face and bolted to the table. This holds you in position during the radiation sessions and keeps the focus directed as specified. Not the most pleasant experience, particularly if you have any issues with claustrophobia. Anyway, I’ve heard stories of the older mask versions and this one definitely seemed pretty benign in comparison both in structure and setup. Anyway, made it through it and tomorrow will be the big day for the first treatment.

10/16/08: Today’s treatment was scheduled for 3:45PM, my sister Dori made the voyage down from Waco to accompany me on this initial treatment. This was great because Nicola has gone with me all week and today she was able to stay home and greet the kids as they arrived home from school. Anyway, we had a great drive down and were able to miss traffic and arrive promptly. MD Anderson offers 2 hour free parking (w/ valet) at the rad/onc clinic which makes it particularly helpful for patients and their families, because most treatment are less than 15 minutes in total duration. Today though, they had to do additional calibrations and x-rays for me to make certain the dose prescribed was accurately being delivered. Once this was accomplished, the treatment was delivered quickly. I was shocked at the speed of the process but must say this has been the most stressful and emotional part of my treatment modalities thus far. Today (and I don’t know why) I felt like a patient with brain cancer for the very first time. Sorry for the gloomy post, but as promised, I will keep you up to date on my treatment progress!

On a lighter note: We now have 2 chickens laying eggs! Much more on this subject later.

Keep praying, have faith, and we'll beat this thing together, David