Update for two days

I've been in the Martha Jefferson Cancer Unit for the past couple of days now - since Thursday night at any rate, and while the care/food/accommodations have been great, I'm pretty much ready to go home.

The meds have taken a lot out of me, and that I can leave variously say either tomorrow or Wednesday. I'm hoping for tomorrow.

Quick updates:

I had some trouble sleeping on Saturday due to some issues with my IV drip. It fell out of place right before bedtime around midnight. By the time we got it replaced and reinserted it into a new arm it was 2am. The machine that monitors the IV drip makes lots of noise when it can't pump IV fluid, or is low on power, so that caused a lot of tossing and turning (and cursing) on my part.

I have to confess that I really cannot stand this machine (there are, in fact two of them). It makes noise at any opportunity, needs to be plugged in to the wall to charge, and - worst of all - must always be attached to my arm and chest to provide drugs. This machine cannot leave the floor - so I am confined to the 7th. This area is a little small for me. I'm used to 3 mile walks and 5-7 mile runs, but have found that I can't really get a mile in without circling the floor about 30 times. I can't wait to get home and run/walk/whatever - I'm officially "Stir Crazy" - not like the Richard Pryor movie, though...

At any rate - I tried to get additional sleep last night. So, I turned in around 10pm and woke up around 8. I'd love to do that again tonight as well.

So I never really explained what this process is that I'm currently going through. The plan at present is to fight the cancer in six phases.
I'm undergoing a therapy called R-EPOCH (Rituxin-EPOCH). I don't fully understand the details, but this is how I understand it:

The first phase is what I'm going through now - hospital time, in which we attempt to dissolve this rather bulky tumor through the chemicals. Rituxin binds to the cells, and other chemicals like Doxorubicin and Vincristine - to interrupt cell growth. The problem is that when you kill this many cells at once - as we're doing initially, these dead cells can then acidify the blood, which causes trouble for the kidneys and other organs. That's why I need to be attached to a second machine which provides an alkaline solution in the blood to counteract the acid. I also need to be closely monitored to ensure that that the pH levels in blood and urine are all correct.

The other six phases (in a nutshell as I know this is getting long) will have me on a similar treatment, but since the tumor will (presumably) be much smaller, it is less likely that I will have issues. I'll write more as I have more details, but I'll save those juicy tidbits for later.

Later friends,
Patrick