Round 4 day 3

Dan it the hiccups are back. Seems to be related to being hungry. Better get some food into me.  Lookout watermelon here I come.  Woohoo. 

Round 4 day 2 update

Yesterday the hiccups returned wit a vengeance.  They started just before lunch and just kept going through most of the night.  It is not easy to go to sleep when you hiccup but surprisingly you can sleep.  It just means a bit more disturbed.  It is funny to wake up hiccuping, funny strange not haha. 

Anyway they appear to have left sometime during the night and I am free of them now. I did wake up with the worst heartburn I've had in years. Probably shouldn't be surprising. 

This is a quick update and today we are putting up the decorations while I still can. 

A PICC line.

This is a PICC line.  It is easy to connect tubes and stuff and goes directly into the vein. 

Round 4

I'm sitting here staring out the Window getting pumped again.  It has been a very strange week for me this week.  I thought that being of the dis I would feel much better, instead I have been constipated for the last couple of days and my hands drying out badly.  Very strange but as one of the nurse said, there is no rhyme nor reason to it when on these drugs.

So I had my PICC line installed at lunch time.  This is where they thread a line through a vein to somewhere close to the heart.  The advantage is the dosage doesn't run along the vein for long before it is mixed all the rest going through the heart and diluted very quickly before being distributed. They give you a local anesthetic before and the use an ultrasound to find the vein and guide the tube in.  It is supposed to be super accurate according to the nurse assisting.  Except of course for my run away veins and the doctor had 2 goes at getting it in a vein.  After which it went in ok and they verify with a chest xray. Anyway about an hour all up.  

And then the fun began. I get to the oncology unit and they plug into the port for a flush and blood flow check.  Instead blood back out of the port they get a bubbly red froth.  That got everyone here really excited.  No one had seen it before and they called on Sophie who is the PICC Queen.  There was an obvious leak in the line somewhere. It had to be on the outside of the vein to be sucking air.  Sophie is meticulous and through elimination found the whole.  With some excellent work was able to make the repair without any issues.  This has to be done quickly as the blood on the other side of the lack could coagulate and cause a blockage.  If this happened then I would have to go back and get a new  PICC inserted.  Thankfully Sophie saved the day. 

It is a beautiful sunny day this afternoon and I'm looking out to the Dandenongs.

I forgot to add that PICC means I now have to come back every week and get the dressing changed.  It also means I can't get it wet at all or I have to come back also.  It is going to be a fun 15 weeks ahead.  Lucky I decided not to start practicing for that long distance swimming thing.  HaHa.

Round 4 - not quite

Some updates

The swelling on my feet turned out to be blisters that couldn't be seen until the redness went down.  A bit of care and they are now ok.

Saw Niall this week as usual for my pre-treatment meet.  I spoke to him about the local reaction to the Carboplatin. He was also very concerned about the state of my hands,  they were very red and swollen when I saw him.  Previously i think i have said this is the Capecitabine. So I have one drug causing local reaction and another causing selling and inflammation.  Now if  I can just show something from the trastuzumab I'd get a jackpot. 

The really good news though is that the CT scan has come back showing real reduction in both the stomach and the lymphs. Excellent news as it means the treatment is working. 

Based on this Niall is reluctant to change my treatment regime,  which is fine by me! IT IS WORKING!  However because of the state of my hands he had deferred this weeks treatment until next week.  Sounds easy but it took me nearly 2 hours yesterday to rearrange things at work.  The other change is that because of the localized reaction to the Carboplatin I will get a PIC  line installed,  fitted, I'm not sure of the right term,  for my next treatment.  Basically this is a tube that will run up an artery in my arm probably into my chest somewhere so the Carboplatin can be administered without the reaction.  It gets fitted, installed next Friday and then stays in until all the treatments are complete.  Looking forward to that,  oh yeah. 

Anyway as I said it is working so I'll do whatever is necessary to finish it. 

Round 3 wk 2

A new development this week. We went to the Watsonia motor Show on Saturday and I wore a different pair of shoes. By the end of the day my feet were very swollen and sore. My left foot in particular developed a strange swelling at the top of the ball of the foot, just below the 2 toes next to the big toe. The swelling goes up towards the toes and still hasn't gone down.  It makes it very hard to walk at the moment.  The good news though is still no cracking or peeling. 

Roud 3 Eow 1

It has been a strange week,  this week.  First there was the whole arm swelling thing.  I still sometimes feel a slight pain in my wrist if I put pressure on it the wrong way.  Probably a muscle memory thing. 

Next it hasn't followed the usual pattern.  Tuesday appeared to be the start of fatigue and the other side effects like usual but then instead of the usual Wed with super fatigue and regular repeating bowel movements, it was a mild day with some fatigue and minimal other things. 

Instead Thursday turned out to be the fatigue day with other fun things.  The other strange thing was the difference in taste.  Previously from early Tuesday through to late Thursday everything tasted awful,  strongly metallic.  I ate soup only and I had to force myself to eat that. This time it wasn't as bad and I have eaten better this week. 

It would be nice if future side effects spread themselves out over the week, but who knows. 

Unfortunately not everything this week has been as mild.  My hands and feet have really swelled this week, particularly my hands.  They are at times quite painful. A very strange thing has been happening this week with my hands.  At times they come up quite purple in places, so in amongst the bright red is this deal purple colour. It seems to come and go very quickly.  I'll see if I can get a photo of it and post it.  I must remember to ask Niall about it.   As I said, a strange week this week. 

An interesting aside is that as they are very puffy and very dry I have very little grip, there is no moisture to be able to hold things.  I have an excuse now for being clumsy.  Anyway no peeling yet so I am quite thankful for that. 

Round 3

On Friday I had my 3rd treatment which turned out to be quite interesting for not good reasons. As the Carboplatin finished my arm stated to get quite a burning sensation around the point of  injection, not bad at first so I didn't say anything immediately and the flush was started.  At the end of the flush the point was burning quite a bit more and very sensitive to touch.  I told the nurse what was going on.  After a bit of discussion it was decided to continue the treatment via the other arm.

Later that day my arm started to swell around the wrist near the injection point.  It became extremely sensitive. When I showed I noticed the heart took a lot of the pain away and seemed to make it less sensitive at least for a little while.  So I put a heat pack on it most of Friday night.  The sensation add the swelling slowly disappeared during Saturday although has left a bit of a week wrist at the moment. Seems when I hold things that are heavy or dry to pull things the wrong way I get a sharp pain, so maybe the swelling isn't completely gone.

Anyway home again this week.  More books to read and movies to watch.