And Here Comes Keytruda

I'm currently receiving my first infusion of Keytruda. We have lots of hope for this to help. It has a very similar side effect likelihood as Yervoy. But it works on other immune receptors.

Cross all that you can for me with this. I have a feeling I'll be getting this every 3 weeks for a while.

Blood Fill up Meets Flu Shot Dream Weirdness

I just woke while having the strangest lucid dreams tonight, and had to share the last. it must mean something, so if you know how to interpret strange yet powerful dreams have fun.

Part one had me still working at MF but also with my current cancer, and close to seeing the company move to Sothern Cal. And I was heading out for the night. This detail meant I had just a couple of months to work there. (This didn't feel fatalistic, yet more transitional.)

Then I climb into my old 1972 family-hand-me-down Datsun 610 to drive home. I had just received this fondly remembered relic from my mother as I needed a car apparently, and in the dream she still had it around. I was checking off all the fixes I recalled it needed before last driving it back in 1987 (it wasn't in the best shape.)

And as dreams go, after a while I was stuck mid-Medford (dream version, so lots of non-real details. I have had lucid dreams of many of the places I've lived. All have been consistently different from reality as I've revisited each from time to time while actively participating in a dream.)

As I reached a certain point, the way was blocked from driving further. I transitioned instantly to wearing old roller skates (sparkly blue size 13's that in the dream were from my mid-teens, yet I never had these.) Upon having these skates the car was no longer there, and I had to skate clandestinely through a large factory to proceed, barely making it out before being nabbed. Weird eh?

Then I wound up not knowing which way was south, and found myself skating through my dream version of East Salt Lake City, and stumbled across a version of the Rogue Valley's bike path mixed with the cool brick architecture of that part of Utah.

Then through another factory, where everyone was happy and many seemed to know who I was. My journey was stopped by non other than Gene Jolly who gave me a wonderful greeting and wanted to know when I'd start working for him there. I had some odd reason about needing my insurance for 2 more mos. and then I'd be available.

It was a super nice visit, and as I departed I looked at my skates and woke up. I remember the vibe of this dream fondly.

This interesting and memorable dream I can only attribute to getting 2 units of blood on Wednesday (this does give me a different feeling, and yesterday I had a flu shot which is kind of sore.) It seems possible the two influenced my dreaming, but who knows.

As I now seem slow to get back to sleep, I thought I'd share this good zany stuff, since things have been pretty heavy as of late. I've always had the occasional lucid dream (where I actively participate.) but this felt more intense. Maybe due to the skating?

Thanks to all who participated and we'll negotiate future appearances.

Tour Complete

I just got home after getting two bags of blood transfused at the Good Samaritan Ambulatory 

Transfusion group. 

So now I'm feeling a bit better, and this completes my tour of the local options for transfusion. Going on tour can be pretty tiring. Particularly when you have to walk ;) I think ambulatory simply implies outpatient. 

And they do some chemo there, but I'm not certain if it's based on room availability or just simpler types of medication, so disregard that bit from the previous post, as it's slanderously inaccurate!

My appt was very timely, as my left arm and hand went numb just as the IV was inserted, (unrelated) but after saliene and the blood started it became normal. I kept saying to myself "let's get going, so I don't slip into needing to go to the ER and spend a few days in the hospital again." Fortunately I saw a healthy increase in blood pressure after 20 minutes (phew!)

On the way home we stopped at Safeway and stocked up on juices as I'd depleted the previous stash. Also grabbed some trail mixes to snack on as I'm almost out of the eating time restrictive Sucralfate (6 hrs between pills with 4 per day, 2hrs prior an 1hr after with no food, so it was 5am, 11am, 5pm, then 10-11pm.

 It's been an effective diet plan as I'm just under 214lbs... Kidding of course. I need to put some lbs back on for future treatments.

My hope is to have a positive report after starting Keytruda this next week. Crossing everything here!

Need more...

My blood work today (after 1 1/2 weeks) dropped from 9.5 to 7.5. What a drag! 

I'm slated to get 2 bags tomorrow at Good Sam's outpatient transfusion group (not sure what they do but it's nothing to do with cancer, and it's pretty tough to get a quick appt. They also required a blood type, which I just zipped in to have to ensure I'd be able to have no delays tomorrow.) The flobatomist said she could see 5 blood types taken recently (between the hospital and the clinic, but we aggreed to just do it in case there was a requirement for there dept. to check it to be sure.

I've been pretty tired and coughing a bit. Since it's not caused anything similar to before, Dr Blanchette thinks it's a slow ooze, and we should get solid with this for the time being.

The great (hopefully) news, is I'm not only approved for the new drug Keytruda/PD-1 and they just got it for my appt on 9/30. She thinks this could act quickly enough to help impact the tumors likely causing blood leaking/oozing.

I'm not feeling overly funny right now, but I'll do my best on the next update. At least I had zero issue driving myself to get the blood type done.

Steady as She Goes

This is a short update:

Aside from being a great song by "The Raconteurs," this title describes my daily blood check results from last week, so the cauterizations performed in my stomach appear to be working.

It's taken a bit of time to recover my diet, and I'm still working towards a more normal healthy intake. Recovery time really gets impacted by low calorie intake. This is somewhat inevitable when you have a restricted diet for multiple days.

My energy levels are climbing, but my naps seem deeper too. 

I'll update more soon.

Blood Steady, and First Infusion of New Round of Yervoy

So no drama today (thank you) and I was able to start the Yervoy today.

The only issue, I've been IV'd and tested sooooo much this last few weeks, it took a lot of attempts to get the infusion IV into a usable spot. No worries... I may love purples, greens and orange but I'm still tough ;)

Still doing a lighter diet, but like our former president, I have strategery (ummm how come that didn't get spell-checked? Please tell me it's not "literally" an accepted word! Presidential legacy I suppose.)

Sorry to sidetrack, but my strategy is to slowly and steadily reintroduce a wider healthy diet. I lost 5 lbs on the hospital clear diet (at 215lbs now) and I really should get some more calories for a future buffer (but not back to where I was at the beginning of this at 280.)

And if you're healthy and want to know this awesome weight loss plan... Just ask, or look up hospital clear diets. Tomato soup (or tomater if you're a Brit on So You Think You Can Dance - 

Natasher was better than the last girls I thought!) Of course I may have been biased as Ki taught her gymnastics when he was teaching in the Provo/Orem area dance schools while he was at BYU.

Thou Shall Not Pass Filter Installed

Finally the dark and fiery flowing is blooming to safety.

Okay, bad prose, but I'm home as of yesterday late morning. My blood levels appear to be holding steady, and I feel much better.

It's crazy to have this mean cancer and then to have an oddly related-in-a-Kentucky-style manner illness almost take me out! My blood loss issue looks to be in control now. Hopefully the added iron they infused will help push my bod to produce more blood.

As my diet was limited for 3 days to a clear liquid and clear solid guide (apple juice, jello, sherbert-huh? and such,) I'm enjoying my slow return to regular chow. Also since the anticoagulants are done, (replaced with a filter placed between my legs and torso, that catches clots,) I don't have to avoid foods as I did with warfarin. So I'm reintroducing some now and others as soon as I think my tummy is ready.

I'm walking, but between the hospital stay and the reason for it, I'm a bit low on energy. 

Tomorrow I'll have the first infusion of a new round of Yervoy, which is just great. It didn't cure my cancer, but it did stop certain growth for a good time both rounds. After this, if needed, we're looking at the new drug PD-1 (being FDA fast tracked) as a probability. You need to have failed (not 100% cured) Yervoy to qualify for this consideration. This link has the information:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/277977.php

Not Yet with Yervoy

I wound up back in the ER after having more bleeding. It's likely the same problem as before, so we did another endoscopy, but this time the surgeon was looking for a more specific bleed in my stomach. My blood levels dropped below 6 this time, which is dang low.

Ki came home at noon to get me to an oncology appt. for an iron infusion (the Yervoy was scheduled, but it wasn't delivered here yet, so we decided to get more iron and wait for the Yervoy to come, which should be soon.

When he arrived I was feeling like I couldn't make the appt, as I was dizzy, really couldn't walk much, and starting having speech issues, and my right hand and forearm were numb for about 30 mins. He called an ambulance and they took me in. It was 3 firemen, and the lead joked about me hopefully enjoying being cared for by 3 "hot" firemen - this was pretty funny. Mainly cause only one was handsome, so I smiled.

Once we arrived the ER doc sent me to another head MRI as my symptoms seemed like a tiny stroke, but the results were negative for it. Very glad for that result.

I had a tumor/ulcer in my stomach which the surgeon was able to cauterize (along with 2 tiny ones.) this seems drastic, but it's likely the reason for my blood issues. Overall, I'm really hoping this addresses the issue.

We stopped all anticoagulants for now, since they're likely the cause. What a less than great few weeks, but having a probable cause and fix makes me feel pretty upbeat!