Steve's Care Page

Today I had an endoscopy. The surgeon wanted to look around to see what percentage of my stomach needed to be removed. The preliminary results is that it looks like my cancer is limited to the top of my stomach. We won't know the true extent until the biopsy because looks can be deceiving. If this is true the surgery would possibly be done via a laparoscopic procedure (minimally invasive). This would reduce the chance of infection and make recovery easier. I also had my appointment for tomorrow's chemo. The good news is my Neutrophils number went up from 1.35 to a 4.86. While not as high as pre-chemo (7.6) it is in the range above 2. It means that we can continue on the path and I'm not as compromised as I was at the end of the last round. As for red blood cell counts, they are down from last time. The main number, my hemoglobin is down from 8.6 to 7.4. Before the chemo my number as still below baseline at 13.4 where anything less than 13.5 would be considered low and a...

We went to see a surgeon today. Lots of information First, I will need to get a EKG and blood-work on Monday. This is so that they can do an additional endoscopy Thursday so that they can look around and do more biopsies. The purpose is to see what percentage of my stomach has cancer. They want to do this sooner rather than later to know where the cancer was before the full rounds of chemotherapy. We also talked about what types of surgery would be needed. There are two extremes. Best case: If the cancer is a small percentage of my stomach, they could do a minimal invasive surgery (laparoscopic) to remove the sections that had cancer. Worst case: If it is most of the stomach, they might need to do open surgery, they then need to do some re-construction so that there is a Y joint. The left portion takes in bile and the right portion would take in food. This would require an additional surgeon. We would do all of these 8-10 weeks after the completion of chemo and radiation ...

For me, chemo is basically agreeing to take toxic medicines that nearly kill you every two weeks.  It is scary to volunteer to know that for 2-4 days after taking the medicine your body is basically recovering. Last Saturday, I sat on the couch all day and did not even feel like paying attention to TV.  Slowly day by day you improve. Your not 100% by the next round but you can start doing things. Doing these things for yourself is an important process of control and long term sanity.  Doing things like the dishes and getting the kids ready for school are important tasks. At least for me, another important task is having work to concentrate on.  It feels good to be productive and help others, to use one's built training and expertise. It not just makes the time pass faster, it brings a bit of normalcy into ones life. Also, it is time that you are not thinking about cancer, time that you can get lost in work. This sets up an issue. You go from not wanting to be ...

There are some funny things that I have experienced going though this. Food: All of sudden, I need to gain weight.  It is like the rules of dieting are backwards. You get recipes like, "Take whole milk, jam powered milk in it and add ice cream mix up for a nice treat". You get advice like "Eat a piece of cheesecake in the morning when you are feeling good." I must have missed the health class where they were like "Drop and eat a cheesecake!!"   Propofoal: This is a short acting anesthesia. It seems like a light-switch. I had 3 procedures where they used this to knock me out. The third time, I was like "Let's see if I can stay awake." Well I could not count down from 10. Also every time I wake up I'm like "Hay I'm waking up." They always say "Well you should be as we are done you have been out for 30 min." Alexis tells me that I'm loud when I wake up as I don't know how loud I'm speaking. It's fun...

Day before second round. So, I now have some numbers from my blood test. If anyone is interested, I have a color coded spreadsheet that I can share. The reasons why these numbers are low is that they are cells that quickly reproduce and get killed along with cancer due to my chemo. two high level facts are below: My red blood cell count is decreasing, it is a 4.07 where anything under a 4.2 is considered low. This explains shortness of breath walking up the stairs. If my next reading is low, I will get a blood transfusion with my next chemo session. For more details on the sub values of the red blood cell look here:   https://stevecare.blogspot.com/2018/11/decisions-on-cancer-110618.html The major concern is a low white blood cell count. It dropped from a 10 to a 2.54. Anything under 4.1 is considered low. This makes it tougher to fight infection. So keep everything very clean.  Details on the white blood cells,  White blood cells can be of three typ...

Everyone, I was feeling good enough to pick up my daughter the other day at school. I walked into after-school day care and it hit me, I was scared. Now I'm not normally scared by a room full of children but this was different as I have a new perspective. Let me first share a summary of a story I read on Twitter. Someone's child was undergoing chemotherapy and was accidentally exposed to measles. This kicked off a tsunami of action. First, they needed to isolate their poor 8 year old for a month. Second, they needed to have the infusion center where their daughter received chemo sanitized. This also meant that everyone in the center since she was there needed to be checked. No one seemed to contract the measles and none of them needed painful shots to increase their white blood cell count. The accidental contact kicked off a ton of work and fear. So, I'm in a room of 30 kids and it hits me, my chemotherapy reduces my ability to fight off infection. At home we have pr...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  I'm feeling pretty good. I'm less winded, I'm eating more and I have more energy. My ability to eat solids has improved as I'm hoping that is a sign that the cancer blocking my esophagus is shrinking. Many things still seem unappetizing. It seems that I like things with salt. The main problem is that I'm limiting myself trying to determine the impact of how things are going to go during this chemo phase. Also, a mix of apathy and boredom is a tough thing to deal with. I have had a chance to read some documents that I really needed to do for work. I'm really looking forward to my white blood cell count next Tuesday to understand how vulnerable I am to infection. If I'm mostly down the first 2-3 days after chemo I would be pretty happy.  It looks like I should be able to do some walking and yoga for exercise during the off weeks.  Right now the major side effects seem to be dry skin, sensitive mouth skin, and some numbness on m...