The Good Fight

Treatments are completed for now and they ended just in time as Mark was totally fed up with the whole regimen. It is extremely difficult to have chemo and radiation at the same time but that is what he has been doing since September 11 when he got out of the hospital in Boston. He had his final chemo treatment Tuesday, October 10. He had such a bad reaction to the treatment of October 3 that he ended up in the emergency room that Friday night for three hours. But, it was time well spent as he was so dehydrated and in so much pain and was in much better shape by the time we left. They arranged an extra office visit this week to run an IV and give him anti nausea mediations and morphine so we could avoid another trip to the ER after the final treatment Tuesday. So, he went this morning and is back in bed snoring now! It sure takes courage to go back for chemo week after week when the reactions each week get increasingly bad. He cut back dramatically on pain killers last week because they were causing so much difficulty with constipation and nausea and has done a little better without them. He is still bed ridden most of the time but we do occasionally get out for a walk and even saw the movie DEPARTED which was violent and bloody but so enthralling with fantastic actors that we actually forgot about the cancer for a few hours!!
Yesterday was Mark's final day of radiation. If you saw the area they radiated on his chest/underarm every day for a month, you would just cringe! It is absolutely burnt to a crisp and now beginning to weep and ooze. It will be a long while before his skin rebounds but we are hoping that it helped shrink the tumor. The doctors claim it definitely is smaller and his arm is more mobile but he does still often have severe pain in the area so we don't really know what to think.
Mark will have a PET & CT scan on his 58th birthday, November 8 and we will get the results on Friday, November 10. These test results should be very revealing and give us a better idea of what the future may bring. The radiation doctor says that Mark will not ever be able to have more radiation on this particular tumor again although he could have it on a tumor that may crop up elsewhere. The oncologist seems to think that after he sees the test results, he may like to go after any other cancer that still exists with chemo but there is a possibility that he will be able to put this off until after the holidays. Mark will consider further treatment if he gets a month or two to recuperate from this past regimen and if they can assure him that it will significantly increase his life span. Although it is stage four cancer, we have no prognosis whatsoever at this point so we look forward, with trepidation, to November 10. If Mark is not in too much pain in the next few months, we could even consider a brief visit to the condo we just purchased in Puerto Rico last April. However, for now, he is too weak, on too many medications and in too much pain to consider going very far from home at all. He still isn't feeling sociable and hasn't called or seen anyone for a few weeks. Perhaps after a week of recuperating from treatments, he will gain some strength and be more welcoming.
Meanwhile, I have a new respect for nurses. I have been so busy with my charts, medication schedules, driving to appointments, applying salves, getting scripts refilled and trying to make eating enticing that I haven't missed the uniform business I sold a month ago at all. I hear the nurses' unions complaining about having more than 8 patients at a time. I don't know how they handle more than one!!! Although there have been countless offers of help that we sincerely appreciate, we really don't need help at this point. Mark is content to have just me and the kids around and I'm so used to being busy that I'd probably fall into a slump if someone stole my job!
One of the most shocking aspects of this illness is the high price of drugs. I'm so grateful to be able to afford them and my heart goes out to those who are less fortunate at such a difficult time. For example, there is one anti-nausea medication on the market called "Zofran" and there is no generic for it. Mark takes 2-3 a day so a refill lasts a week or ten days. The co-pay for it is $100 and if our insurance didn't cover it, and they tell me most insurances don't cover it,
it would cost $1,035 to buy it. Furthermore, I don't know how anyone would survive the effects of chemo without it. This is just one of the many pain killers, appetitie stimulants and lotions
he uses regularly.
Well, as always, your e-mails are very much appreciated. They seemed to get ahead of me the past few weeks and I didn't respond as often as I would have liked but I do always print them out and show them to Mark. All of your kind and generous offers are sincerely appreciated and we are sorry to keep turning them down but the day may yet come when we need your help. Meanwhile, all your positive vibes, nice cards, and prayers make a difference in our outlook.