3/15/2017 - 1st Cycle Done
Published by Kevin Moore,
(The above photo was taken by my good friend, Ron Maio, as he was praying for my recovery)
I know it's been a few weeks since I last posted about "our" battle with cancer. I say "our" because I know I'm not fighting alone. Yeah, I'm out front taking all of the hits but I couldn't push forward without the love and prayers of everyone, especially my wife Kim and my kids (Nathan, Ryan, and Emily).
This week I start the second round of my first cycle of treatment. Basically, I am taking a chemo pill for 14 days and I go in for infusions on days 4 and 11. On days 15-21, I take nothing. After my third round, I will get scanned to see if there are any changes in my tumors. God willing, I sure hope they have reduced. If they have or things are unchanged, I will repeat the three cycles (9 weeks) and get another scan. This could literally go on for 5-6 months as long as there is good progress. If not, I will move over to another program. There are plenty of them. Clinicals give you the best chance at beating this. Immunotherapy is also an option. If the tumor shrinks enough, they may remove it. As with most things in life, it all depends.
(Toxic drug bag for chemo pills)
After my first round of chemo (which was on a Thursday, when we first posted to Facebook about my condition), I felt pretty good. Very little nausea, ate as well as I could, and slept OK. They give you meds for a couple days after the infusion to help negate the side effects. The steroid makes me a little jittery so sleep can be a little difficult but that's OK. Better than feeling like complete crap.
Come Monday, I was a little tired but I decided it was best to go workout. Unfortunately, it went downhill from there. Later that afternoon, I was getting nerve pains in my left leg (the cancer leg). It felt weird. I thought maybe I overdid it at the gym. Honestly, I should be on crutches so as not to fracture the bone but I am a hard-head. Having to use crutches was affecting my quality of life so I stopped using them after a couple weeks. My leg was feeling pretty good so I didn't think much about it.
Come Tuesday, the leg was worse. The pain just kept coming and it was getting stronger. I tried icing it along with taking Motrin. Nothing worked. I had an RX for Oxycontin so I started taking that (after we talked with the on-call doctor at Hopkins). It didn't help much. I got some sleep but, come Wednesday, it wasn't any better. In fact, it was probably worse (7 on a 10 scale). I started taking the steroid again also. I was concerned that I wasn't going to be able to get my chemo treatment on Thursday. I stopped icing it as it seemed like it was just making things worse. At about 6PM, Kim was going to take me to Hopkins. One last attempt at alleviating the pain: Kim got me to keep my leg raised high, above my head, resting on pillows at a right angle laying down. Within 15 minutes, the pain went down to a 2-3. Unbelievable! No idea why but thank God she had the wherewithal to get me to try that. I ended up sleeping like that all night and was able to go to get my infusion on Thursday.
Needless to say, I am now back on crutches. At the time, it was thought that I messed up my leg (fractured it) in the gym though it didn't hurt until hours later. They took more X-rays and it really didn't show anything more than what it showed a few weeks ago. We went to see a radiologist, as I am going to start to get radiation treatments on my leg to alleviate some of the cancer in it, and she said the pain was from the chemo and that it was a good thing. It meant that it was working. Lord, I hope so! I don't want to have to go through that again.
After the infusion on Thursday, there were very little side effects again which was great. I was concerned the leg was going to start hurting again come Monday so we preempted it with some heavy pain meds but the leg pain didn't come back and I weaned off of the meds. That was great news! I ended up getting a shot on my off week with a drug that helps fight metastatic bone cancer and rebuilds bone cells. While we were at Hopkins doing this, I showed them the.....
Rashes. Yeah, I got multiple rashes during this cycle. We thought it was from the narcotics but we later determined that it was from the chemo. When I was down and out with the leg pain, which was about 4-5 days after infusion, well, the chemo starts to come out....everywhere. Kim has quarantined me to my own bathroom for the safety of everyone else in the house. You need to flush twice with the lid closed. Showers need to be had 2-3 times a day and you essentially need to burn your clothes after you wear them. OK, not burn but you can't re-wear anything. They are toxic. Well, guess who didn't change clothes for 2 days while on the couch with leg pain? Yeah, and I didn't shower either. When you are in that much pain, common sense is tossed out the window. So, I got a rash over half my body. It didn't itch or anything but, when you are on chemo and taking drugs, there can be so many side effects so you have to watch out. This is called shooting yourself in the foot.
(A plus for chemo. You get your own bathroom.)
Chemo burn. The rash going up my arm was from the chemo leaking out of the vein and going up the inside of my skin. It was sore and, eventually, really started to itch as the chemo was trying to come to the surface. Eventually, I may need to get a port in.
So, other than the leg pain, rashes, and chemo burn, the first round of this cycle was uneventful. Seriously, I handled the treatments really well. And I still have my hair!
With love,
Kevin and Kim