Yes it's rotten. He's an only child I believe and his mother survived breast cancer a couple of years ago. Still, treatment odds aren't terrible - about a 50% 5 year survival and that's not counting on newer second line treatments like CAR-T therapies which can be quite miraculous, so I'm hoping for the best with him. He presented to the ER with nausea and chest pain and they found his white blood cell count was 50,000! (Normal 3,000- 10,000). They gave him his first dose of chemo the next day and two days later his white count was low at 1400, so at least it is very sensitive to Rituxan. Problem is, he's in Hawaii and would like to travel back to California so his mom could care for him but he shouldn't travel when he's immunocompromised with a low white blood count (breathing everybody's germs on the airplane) and he would have to time things carefully between treatments so there is no lag time between his last treatment there and first treatment here.
Wow that's crazy.....I have a good friend of mine that just got diagnosed with colon cancer and he is 43 I think. His pet scan showed that it has not spread but he is concerned about the amount of his colon they will have to remove. I think he started his radiation pills last week.
I know I've said it before but it bears repeating, CMM is beyond lucky to have you in his life. I know he may not act that way at times but putting myself in his shoes I'd be beyond grateful - in fact getting sick or dying alone is one of the few motivators I have left to even attempt to find someone. Another point to the positive, since I'm on a positive, glass half full bent here, is that it's looking more and more like CMM is going to beat the median survival rate. It's also sounding like he's doing it with a decent quality of life as well. If I were CMM I'd be very thankful for KML.
DonH Midwest Me 56 WAW-EXW 55 Met 11/95 / Married 5/00 Bomb 6/20/05 / She Filed on 6/2/06 / Divorced on 10/9/06 4 who'd qualify as GF since D & dated about 25 women since D
Thanks you guys. Yeah it makes you live in the moment and appreciate things. Tonight we're going to go see Ron White, the comedian. (They call me Tater Salad).
Well we saw the oncologist today before chemo, plan is to add radiation treatments (he'll see the radiation oncologist Monday). Also his anemia continues to worsen so they will finally give him a transfusion on Monday.
CMM had a grossly bloody stool last night - just once, thank goodness, but worrisome since he had chemo yesterday and one of the potential side effects of this chemo is colitis. Normally they would treat that with steroids but he cannot take steroids (they cause him to have intractable hiccups, once lasting 6 months and losing 50 pounds). I'm afraid this may develop into a problem limiting his use of this chemo, and naturally, his oncologist is going out of town for the month. And of course it doesn't help his anemia any. Geez.
