I haven’t played with the blog for a few days, since no other funny stories have appeared on my home front, I figured I would share on my chemotherapy progress.

I am in to cycle 2, and this cycle seems to be the worst so far. The VP-16 and the cisplatin took a real toll on my body this weekend, and I nearly ended up on the floor in the bathroom of an Outback Steakhouse and in the attempt to catch myself I hit my head not once but twice. I now have two healing lacerations on my bald head. The stubble is disappearing every time I take a shower, so the hair loss has become more complete.

Usually the worse symptoms disappear after being off of it for a few days, so usually by Wednesday or Thursday after the start of a cycle I feel fine. Still hard to enjoy some aspects of life like dining out without fear of ending up in a unit going to the emergency room. That feeling that you are about to pass out and you lose all control of your body is frightening, and in the future I want to avoid it. I doubt I’ll ever be truly normal again. I mean come on, I am short one testicle and enduring having chemicals meant to nearly kill me pumped into my body. I guess if you’re not living after that, then what is? I may go jump out of planes and do more adrenaline seeking stuff after this.

I can say, however, that the chemo (despite having a handy knack for making me feel terrible) is working. I got a look at the my tumor markers that were drawn at the start of this cycle and they are all trending downward. I think jumping on chemo as soon as the spike was detected was a smart move, but it makes me wonder about adjuvant (immediately after surgery) therapy. I can see the arguments for and against, and that healing can be delayed by the chemo (and healing from an inguinal incision sucks), but I can see the benefits of knocking it out immediately after removal of the primary tumor. Either way, we’re pushing on.

My air conditioning has totally failed to keep up with the heat wave we’ve been having, but help is on the way with that, and I have the best AC guy I can find coming to give me a second opinion on what we can do to make the thing work well. I think it is under-powered and old in general.

My son is visiting his grandparents, and he is with my parents this week. They wanted him before they started repairs to the house that were caused by the hail storm a few months ago. My wife’s parents get him back next week when they go to Virginia to help my recently engaged brother-in-law move into a place of his own.

Well, that’s about it this time around.