Danny Does Chemo - Day One

 

[caption id="attachment_3767" align="aligncenter" width="630"] Danny Does Chemo - Day One #1[/caption]

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    Welcome back My Dear Readers to The Other Shoe. Welcome to 'Day One' of the main part of this article series, and my current round of chemo. I am writing this article while I receive my chemotherapy treatment. I do so for two reasons; first because I am stuck here for seven to eight hours, and I kind of doubt I will feel up to writing once I get home... tonight about 7:30PM. Make the best use of this time while I can. 

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[Youtube=http://youtu.be/9s5uR4w9oO0]

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The image, at the top of the page, is of me prior to chemo treatment. I hope to have three to four videos and several stills for the release of this article. Along with the wonderful images and videos, I plan to give you a blow-by-blow of my 'Day One' chemotherapy. It is now 1:15PM on Wednesday November 5th, 2014. You will notice, in the videos, I keep saying it is "November 4th"... it is not, it IS November 5th. I just got up at 5AM so I am a little loopy. 

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So, yes, my day starts with a 5AM wake-up. Allen helps me out of the bed and I grab, a half-awake, Alexander from his cage. Allen is running my bath, while I set out the clothes I will wear for the day. My red 'Tommy Hilfiger' thermal-top and my 'Red Mickey' pajama bottoms. I may have to get chemotherapy, but nothing says I cannot be comfortable while it happens. Alexander is climbing on my shoulders, talking in my ear. 

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He tells me that these 5AM 2 wake-up calls best be rare and infrequent. He no more enjoys being awaken at 5AM than I. I assure Alex this will only happen once every three weeks... and on the 11th when I go see Dr. Gorlick. He is still upset, but satisfied with my answer. He licks my ear, says a few words in 'rat', and settles in for a ride on my shoulders. I finish setting out my clothes, and see that Allen is finished preparing my bath. 

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[youtube=http://youtu.be/48oouRn1w6Q]

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By 6AM I am bathed, shaved and dressed ready for a light breakfast then my ride to the infusion center. I am scheduled for pick-up at 7:30AM for arrival in time for my 9 AM check-in time slot. My pickup time, for my ride home, is 6:30PM to arrive home by 8PM. Oy it is going to be a very long day My Dear Readers. Finished with preparations, I sit in my power chair waiting for the transit bus to arrive. I pass the time reviewing the depressing, but not unexpected, results. 

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'Off-year' elections generally favor the party not in the White house, so this comes as no great shock. Democratic candidates have won a few heatedly contested seats, and a few governor's races. Yet, Republicans take the (non-fillibuster proof) majority in the Senate. Senator Mitch McConnell will soon know the pain Sen. Harry Reid has endured these past six years. During the second commercial break, in the election news, I turn off the television. Now it is time to help Allen prepare our cooler of fluids and snack foods. (Little i did know that 5 hours into treatment everything would taste terrible)

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The transit bus arrives and Allen helps me get settled in. It is now 8:10AM and I will arrive shortly before 9AM. It is an uneventful ride. Several stops, along the way, people getting in and off at their destinations. Finally, about 8:55AM, we arrive at my stop. Allen assists me disembarking from the bus. 

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[caption id="attachment_3768" align="aligncenter" width="630"] Danny Does Chemo - Porta-Cath Ready For Chemoterapy Drugs[/caption]

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First, I want to make mention and sing accolade of the staff and nurses here at the 'Total Care Infusion Center' of the Los Alamitos Medical Center. Ruby, Toncy (my incredible nurses and support staff) and Mary. These women showed me great kindness and wonderful support. My thanks and kudos to Dr. Curti and the entire staff at his office and here at the Total Care Infusion Center. If I must have chemotherapy, I cannot imagine a better place or a more wonderfully supportive staff. It is now 2:30PM. I am taking a short break from writing. 

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Shortly after I took the (indicated) break… well, things got a little sketchy for Dan. Yes, I am writing this Thursday morning while preparing to leave for my injection of Neulasta at my Oncologist’s office. The fun just never seems to stop, here in the land of Danny’s Chemo Adventure! So, what changed? I started having increasingly worse lower back pain, everything I drank or ate tasted like aluminum metal, and I had difficulty getting out of the recliner and up to go to the bathroom. Weakness, dizziness and headaches soon accompanied the cacophony of symptoms that now plagued yours truly.

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[caption id="attachment_3769" align="aligncenter" width="630"] Danny Does Chemo - Day One – Blood Red Chemo Drug[/caption]

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I relayed the symptoms to the very supportive nursing staff, but did my best to marshal on without complaint, just like a good ‘Little Texas Boy’. In the last still images, and the last video, of this article you can see the Ariamycin/Doxrubacin medication going into my body. Yes, it is a blood red medication… and it is one of the most toxic chemicals in mankind’s modern day chemotherapy arsenal. My oncologist is bringing out the ‘Big Guns’ to fight this bodily invader. Kudos Dr. Curti!

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[youtube=http://youtu.be/CvTBiNrfp2g]

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Much to my glee, the chemotherapy treatments end precisely as the OCTA transit bus arrives to take me home. I leave the Total Care Infusion Center @ 6PM, to arrive (finally) at home at 7:45PM. Ready to hurl chunks, head throbbing, back aching, and stomach churning I come home to great an anxiously awaiting Alexander R. Hanning Rat. He is quite happy to see Daddy Danny and Daddy Allen.

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He immediately pries open my mouth, to discern where Daddy has been and what have my fellow humans done to me over the past ten hours. I pull him away from my mouth, only allowing him to smell my breath. He immediately coughs and spits… yes, right into Daddy’s mouth. Well, it’s my son’s spit.. so I laugh and explain to him where I have been and what he smelled. He accompanies me to the bathroom where Allen is running my bath.

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[caption id="attachment_3770" align="aligncenter" width="630"] Danny Does Chemo - Day One Another Blood Red Chemo Shot![/caption]

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Allen helps me get ready to bathe and change out my Fentanyl pain patch. It is really late for the patch change, and I am feeling the waning of its effect. While I am soaking away, some, of my back pain and much of the smell of that day’s chemical infusions, Allen is preparing a frozen pizza in the kitchen. It is nearly 9PM when I, finally, sit down in my bed to eat and rest,

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I manage to eat one piece of pizza before falling asleep while having dinner and watching television. I awake at 1AM to extreme nausea, where, I deposit the recently eaten pizza into… well that is TMI. I return to bed, to discover that Alexander was sleeping with me all this time. I return my sleepy little rat buddy to his warm and comfy cage. Then I collapse into the waiting bed. I awake several more times, over the night and into the wee hours of the morning. Seems my stomach is competing with my headache to see just which one will/ can give me the most grief. When the wrenching of my neck, puking, adds to my headache with growing shooting pains in my neck and arm… well, the headache and neck pain beat out the nausea soundly.

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Thus, My Dear Readers, was the entirety of ‘Danny Does Chemo – Day One’. I hope that you have enjoyed reading nearly as much as I have enjoyed sharing and telling. I am not too sure just how much I am going to have written, over the weekend. I want to relax and recover. I know that all of you, My Dear Readers, will understand.

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Thank you for all your kindness and support during this difficult and trying time of my… newest battle with misfortune. I will write again, soon. Take care!

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.The single MO$T disturbing part or yesterday? Well, what I WASN'T told. One the paperwork, when I get admitted to Total Care  Los Alamitos I ALWAYS get a 'Share of Costs' page FILLED OUT! Yesterday, I was given a BLANK PAGE to sign, agreeing I would "Pay all "thereNon-Covered" charges. Meaning ANYTHING Medicare decides NOT to cover I MUST PAY to continue getting treatment. This has NEVER happened before... did 'The Other Shoe' just drop (again) in my life? I can barely pay rent, food and bills... THIS was the WHOLE reason behind the 'Cancer Treatment Fund' campaign. Not a great time for financial fears... on top of cancer concerns... and the holidays right around the corner... 

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Adieu!

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Thank YOU!

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[caption id="attachment_3755" align="aligncenter" width="630"] Arival at the Oncologist's Office[/caption]

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© 2010 – 2014
Hanning Web Wurx and The Other Shoe

Radioactive Dan!

[caption id="attachment_3515" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Danny Arrives @ Hospital for PET Scan[/caption]

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Welcome back My Dear Readers to The Other Shoe. My apologies for my absence, these past two days, as I have been involved in the ‘Staging’ process with my cancer. Yesterday, the topic of this article, was full of fun and excitement with a P.E.T. (Positron Emission Tomography - Computed Tomography) scan. I know how could something like that be… entertaining? Well, I will tell you just how and give you; videos from the day, images from the day, and images of/about P.E.T. scans and the process. At the end of this article, I will share some of the actual images from my scan! Tell me that is not exciting!

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However, before I get started on day-before-yesterday I want to say a few words about yesterday. Yesterday I left, at 6:00AM, for my ‘Bone marrow Biopsy’ procedure. We arrived at Los Alamitos Medical Center at 6:30AM. My Dear Readers, instead of one procedure? They did two procedures. I did not leave the medical facility until 6:00PM last night! Twelve hours at the medical center, one bone marrow biopsy, and one ‘Porta-Cath’ placement later I am one very sore puppy. It was a terribly long day with nothing to eat or drink for more than TWENTY-TWO hours!

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I will be writing about yesterday, later today… if I have the strength. Today is Friday and I know that there are a lot of people, out there among you My Dear Readers, that are looking forward to another episode of ‘The Horror in Smithville’. Whereas, I have about thirty pages, yet unpublished, I have not had the time and energy (at the same tome) to edit the very next section of ‘Part 14’. I hope that everyone finds understanding about this situation. I very much would like to publish more and more of ‘The Horror in Smithville’.

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With Halloween rapidly approaching, I do feel the heat of my looming deadline. It is just that my Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma is making more demands upon me, than there are hours in the day. I will be working on the pages I do have, and trying my best to publish another episode, as soon as possible. However, My Dear Readers, my first chemotherapy is next Wednesday. From what I am being told, I will not feel like; writing, publishing, living for several days after this first chemotherapy. We shall see what happens and I will publish my intentions ahead of time.

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[youtube=http://youtu.be/-_XOQYhJ5A4]

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On to the topic of the day, ‘Radioactive Dan!’. I saw this because this was my very first P.E.T. scan and I was completely unaware of just how ‘toxic’ the material they use, is. Once I had arrived, and the technician was made aware of my arrival, I was taken to the very distant back of the imaging area. Here everything is heavily shielded. The room I was told to “sit quietly in for an hour” had huge shielded doors! I noticed this as I was awaiting the arrival of the ‘nuclear technician’.

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Once in the shielded room he brought my injection, into the room in a lead safe! It was about the size of a large shoebox and was made of all lead and steel. Once he had a good vein, he ran a saline rinse… then brought out this HUGE LEAD SYRINGE! It looked like something out of a sci-fi story or a cartoon!

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[youtube=http://youtu.be/9Wsy5yM6drk]

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Seriously, the technician walks into the room, holding one syringe in his hand and in the other is this large metal box! It has the yellow and red ‘radioactive’ symbol on all sides and is as large as an old bread box. He sets them both down, and proceeds to put an IV shunt into the vein in my left arm. Once done, he takes the first syringe and “clears the butterfly… makes sure the IV is patent’. Once done, then he takes is huge lead encased syringe out of the radioactive box. He explains that this is the dextrose solution with the radioactive isotope.

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He explains that it was made at University of California Irvine, and that he is now going to inject it into my body. He presses the plunger and the radioactive solution enters my vein. It is, initially, cold to the touch. Within a few moments I have a heavy metallic taste in the back of my throat. He removes the butterfly IV and wipes the injection site, again, with an alcohol swab. Then he wraps the injection site with a bright red gauze bandage.

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I am now told that I am to “Sit in this shielded room for one hour, to allow the solution to be absorbed…” He wraps me in a warm blanket, turns on a little electric candle, turns off the lights and closes the lead-lined door. As I sit there I hear, very low in the background, some kind of tape of forest sounds and non-descript melodies. I sit there, falling in and out of sleep. I had not slept, the night before, out of anxiety and pain.

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Within about fifteen to thirty minuets I feel incredible burning feeling just below my rib cage. It is in the front of my body, and wraps around both sides. It also radiates in the area, of my right side and back, where Allen and I had found an all new lump and where I have been experiencing a lot of pain. As I am thinking about the pain, and the burning sensation, the technician opens the door.

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“Is everything alright? Do you need to go to the bathroom? Are you in pain? The chair you are sitting in is set up to measure activity and heart rates. You seem to be in distress.”

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Super a ‘smart-chair’, and it is ratting me out to the technician! I, calmly respond;

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“Yes, I am feeling pressure, pain and some distress just below my rib cage. It made me a little upset…scared. I will try to relax, again.”

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The technician nods and tells me to just try my best to relax. Sometimes, when the radioactive dye collects in tumors or cancer cells that it will fell like burning. That it is just the nature of the radioactive dye and the process. He leaves the room and closes the door behind him. I sit and try to breath slowly, and calm down. I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I know Allen and the technician are waking me.

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They both help me walk into the room with the scanner. I am still feeling pressure and burring just below my rib cage. Now it is also in my neck, throat and head. The burning in my head has me really concerned. For the next thirty minuets I sit in a tube as the motorized platform goes in and out of the tube, ever so slowly. This part, I cannot sleep through. I am just all too concerned about the burning, and the pain.

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[caption id="attachment_3517" align="aligncenter" width="630"] Upper Torso with 'Hot Spots'[/caption]

(Upper Torso with 'Hot Spots')

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Soon enough, the scan is over and I am removed from the tube. Allen helps me get back into my power chair, and for the first time since I arrived, I relax. The technician comes up to me and tells me that someone will arrive with my disc of the scan, just to wait right there in the shielded part of the room. Within ten minutes another white coated technician arrives. She hands me the CD, and a package of information.

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She explains to me that I am, now, radioactive. Not enough for concern but I am to: not go out to eat, not go into a store, not be around groups of people, not be around children or old people at all! For the next twelve hours, whenever I go to the bathroom, I am to flush “several times to make sure all radioactive material is clear of the building…”. She gives me a handout (that I put up on Facebook a few days ago) that immediately reminds me of ‘Instructions for a Zero Gravity Toilet from 2001 A Space Odyssey’. I head out to get picked up by the OCTA access bus.

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[youtube=http://youtu.be/cCU97Ax8LcI]

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Surprisingly, they take me directly home. No stops, no pick-ups, no drop-offs, just me and Allen alone in the van taken directly home. The rest of the day I rest, but for most of the day I feel great pressure and pain under my ribcage, still.

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That, My Dear Readers, was my adventure with my PET scan and the story of ‘Radioactive Dan’! Tomorrow, if my pian allows, I will return with another tale! This time, about the torture of my bone marrow biopsy… and the implanting of a ‘Prota-Cath’ device under my SKIN!

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[caption id="attachment_3519" align="aligncenter" width="630"] 'Hot Spot' on PET Scan Just Below Rib Cage[/caption]

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In spite of all of that I have done my best to keep busy… to “Keep Moving Forward!”. Now, I have been hit below the belt with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma CANCER! With limited to Spartan resources, my battle might well be quite short. With your, My Dear Readers, HELP? I stand a fighting chance of beating my cancer and not damaging my body, my liver, my kidneys… due to a lack of proper nutrition and proper amounts of fluids. I am NOT lying. I DO lack the money to purchase these ITEMS.

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Thank you for dropping by… and PLEASE CONSIDER DONATING TO Danny’s Cancer Treatment Fund @ Indiegogo![1]

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Adieu!

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Thank YOU!

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PLEASE DONATE to

Danny's Cancer Treatment Fund @ Indiegogo

[caption id="attachment_3338" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Danny in Rolling Hills Estates August 12, 2014[/caption]

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© 2010 – 2014 Hanning Web Wurx and The Other Shoe

 

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[1]https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/danny-s-cancer-treatment-fund/x/753895