Bad News Bears is the name of the fantasy football team that Michelle and I run. Michelle is the owner (she shells out the money to join the league) and I am the GM and coach. We originally named the team the Bears (as in Cal Bears), but added the ‘Bad News’ after repeated bad luck and bad choices.
This program is performed over six (6) cycles, with each cycle lasting three (3) weeks. In the first five days of the cycle, I am hospitalized in a Transitional Intensive Care Unit (TICU for all you acronym lovers out there). During this stay, I am given three different chemotherapy drugs and two immunology/biological drugs.
For the record, the drugs I will be on are (drug name first, followed by trade name) Cisplatin/Platinol, Temozolomide/Temodar, and Vinblastine/Velban. The immunology drugs are Interleukin-2/Proleukin and Interferon Alpha/Interferon 2b.
In addition, I am given all sorts of drugs to reduce the various side effects. From anti-nausea drugs to anti-itch creams, from drugs to help keep my kidneys functioning properly to drugs that help prevent leaky blood vessels, I get it all.
After the news, I briefly visited the TICU. I met the head nurse, who welcomed me “to the department where the patients come in feeling great and leave feeling very bad”.
After the hospital stay, I rest for the next 2+ weeks. During my rest period, I take a number of pills and shots to fight any potential continued side effects. I am told that I sleep lots for the first few days, but by the third week I start to feel better. The main goals of this 2+ weeks include rest, build up my strength for the next treatment, and avoid getting sick with my weakened immune system.
After the third treatment, the doctors perform another PET/CT scan to review the cancer in my body. If the cancer cells have shrunk or at least stopped growing, and no new cancer has appeared, then the treatment is continued for the remaining 3 cycles. If the cancer has grown, or new cancer has formed, then the treatment is discontinued and we pursue other alternatives. This will likely include attempts to join one or more clinical trials of experimental drugs.
While this is a difficult process, it can be successful. Here is one such success story; http://www.cpmc.org/services/cancer/erick_davis_il2.html. I spoke to Erick recently, who remains cancer free since his biochemotherapy treatment in 2005.
Before I can start this program, I need to gain weight. On the date that I received the news, I was still down 25 pounds from my radiation treatments, despite the fact that I am now eating a lot more. But nothing like some bad news to focus you on a goal! I gained 5 pounds the first week after the bad news by eating ice cream 3 times per day. Also, instead of eating at home, where I control the portion size, I started eating lunch out at local restaurants. Since most restaurants provide you with way more food than you need in any given meal, this was a great way for me to gain weight. It may sometimes take me a full hour to eat what is on my plate, but what else do I have to do with my time?
2 comments:
hang in there Rich.
How about posting your Bad News Bears football picks each week so that some of us can take the opposite wrong picks?
tony
Rich,
Just reading your blog I am inspired by you. You amaze me with your ability to maintain your sense of humor. Keep it up! yet don't feel badly or get down on yourself if you decide simply, one day, to not have a sense of humor about it. You are entitled and certainly no one would hold it against you! YOu are in my thoughts (and would be in my prayers if I did that sort of thing!) every day...we send you our love and support (and more drawings from Olivia!) as always....
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