Monday, March 28, 2016

The second to last round has begun

As with most Monday's since the start of the new year, Denise and I ventured north to the Cleveland Clinic this morning.  Today officially started the second to last round of chemo for her.  The difference today is that our daughter Molly came along for the ride.  As with most 11th graders, she's not sure what career path to follow in life, so she wanted to come along to see what it's like at a world renowned institution like the Cleveland Clinic since nursing is beginning to become appealing to her.   She also wanted to see what it's been like for her Mom since the start of all of this.  I'm glad she did join us because the nurses there spent time talking with her and telling her some stories.  I think that might have cemented her desire to take up a noble career as that.  I don't know if I've said it on here, but I know I've said it aloud to others; nurses are the true heroes of medicine.  I saw that first hand when I  was in the hospital for my back surgery 11 years ago and then with Denise's recent visits.
Aside from watching Molly's wide-eye enthusiasm, we met with Doctor M today.  He's been kept aware by us on Denise's recent issues and wanted to make sure everything was okay.  The plan right now is to continue on with 6 rounds of chemo.  If however next weeks Taxotere round takes her out again and causes her more hospital time, he may cancel the last Taxotere treatment and just finish up after this round.  We will see.  Of course Denise and I are hoping to do all 6 to make sure this cancer is beat, but at the cost of her overall health, it's a slippery slope.  The good news also today was that with Denise starting to take iron supplements regularly now, we saw a marked increase for the better with her blood numbers.  So that is a good thing.
Before her normal chemo appointment though, Denise got to have what every women, (and even some men), get to go through regularly.  A mammogram.   Now I'm not going to go into detail, but let's just say that took longer then it normally does and she was in a very foul mood afterwards.  I'm sure you can fill in the blanks 
Now, we wait.  Hopefully this weeks single treatment will go easy on her like normal.  And with all of the things we've learned over the past several weeks, hopefully we can do enough prep for next weeks visit and not have it take as hard of a toll on her as the previous ones have.  We can hope.

1 comment:

  1. Andy thanks for posting updates. We all miss Denise at VVAH. Reading these blogs helps know what you all are going through. Continued prayers. - Felicia

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