The 1st day of the road to recovery

A ton has happened since the last update so I am going to lay it out here. Today, as many of you know, marked day number 1 of chemo for B. D Bone has been in town since Saturday and took B to treatment. Today started very early, with a 7 am wake up call for everyone...well everyone but B. He was already up because he never quite fell asleep last night. B had to be to Lemmen Holton by 8 am and they got things underway right away.

B started the day with a special drip of Zomata, which is the drug used to make the bone in B's hip super strong. The down side, of course, is that it makes B's body ache, which builds to the problem at hand....B is super sore already in both the hip and the neck. That drip was followed up by 2 different anti-nausea drugs. These first 3 bags took about 1.5 hours. Then came the all important chemo drips. I guess you could say that we have been looking forward to starting the chemo since it means that the drugs in the chemo IV are working to kill the cancer cells in B's body and to prevent/control further spread. That makes me feel much better....get that shit out of there already! B's chemo drips were super long...the first was more than 3 hours and the second was about 1 hour 15 minutes. Not to mention all the saline shots in between...and the 2 morphine shots to help B get comfortable.

We packed a bag to keep the day interesting......cards, sudoku, backgammon, and books. B and D Bone were in a private room with a bed and a TV so that B could rest, if he needed, and since we are not getting much sleep these days we thought that the bed would be a great benefit. With my office being so close, I just walked through the tunnel and stopped over for a visit on my lunch hour. D Bone and B were playing cards, and D Bone was quick to let me know that she was kicking B's ass in a friendly game of gin....love it! They were also watching HGTV, also love it! As D Bone said, it was a nice day with her son, just terrible circumstances, but we have to make good moments out of the bad these days. And B didn't seem to mind it too much, either. Even though at one point he had 3 different tubes hooked into his arm. Good thing that kid has the easiest veins EVER! Dr. #4 even said B didn't need the usual chemo port because it's so easy for B to give blood and take infusions.

We all enjoyed a lunch and then we returned back to the private room. I was a bit out of routine today and had a hard time pushing the IV at a good pace. I forget that B is on crutches so I pushed the IV way too fast and damn near pulled the line out of B's arm....I did not have my normal A game today and felt bad all day not being there with him. Not to mention when we got back to the room B was resting comfortably and I decided to sit on the bed with him and landed right on the control that operates the bed. This error caused B's leg to shift and he yelled out....again not on my A game. So day numero uno is almost done and we still don't quite know what we have in store. The staff did say that B is going to be sore from the chemo too, and he probably will lose the hair, but big deal. Let's just hope he doesn't react too bad to the drugs.

In addition to starting chemo today, there was some other big news from an appointment on Monday with Dr # 4. He decided that we needed to move into a full court press approach. He said that we were going to start chemo this week, and then have surgery on the hip next week. You heard it right, the surgery is back on!! Dr # 4 wants to be aggressive, and until B has the hip surgery he will not be walking and will continue to be in terrible pain. Dr. # 4 thinks that chemo will be much more difficult if B is not walking, so surgery is back on. B's having surgery next week...Wednesday in D Town. It is going to be pretty major, but the good news is that he will be weight bearing that same day. Surgery will be somewhere around 5-8 hours, and he'll be in the hospital for about a week or so. The hope is that B will be walking by June....I could almost cry thinking about that. Dr. # 4 said that there is obvious concern because the disease has progressed, but he did follow that up by saying that we aren't sure what is going to happen since this is our first attack on the cancer. He said that B could respond to the chemo and that this could work to control things...so let's just hope that we get a break these next few months.

After the surgery and recovery we're back home to GR for the second round of chemo. This next month or so it going to be hell, but we got this. We Got This!!! Dr. # 4 also hopes to be able to use the tissue from the hip for the genetic testing, and hopefully, by treatment number 3, we should have a good read on what we are dealing with and if we need to make any changes in treatment.

It's going to be a rough road and we need all the prayers and positive energy we can get. Thanks again for all the support and for keeping the blog alive.