A better week ahead, hopefully

This was a long day spent at the Rowan Center, but I think we have a good plan. We arrived at 9 am, but didn't get in to the exam room until about 10:30. Dr. Glick was very concerned about my week of hell, and he said we need to get me functioning. So I'm on a low dose of Decadron (steroid), along with Prilosec to head off heartburn. I also have a tiny dose of Dilaudid for pain, if needed. We need to get the liver to shrink, so the steroid will help with that and also with nausea. The pain med is just in case. I am also anemic, so he had me get a Procrit injection. On clinical exam, he said it felt like my liver did not enlarge any more since last week. In fact, the pain is better. The tumor markers from last week were up slightly, but not significantly. All in all, I was encouraged this week by the plan, and I think it will be a better week ahead.

After the meeting with Dr. Glick, we went back to the chemo area. The Abraxane is supposed to be a 30-minute infusion, but we were there for a really long time. I was running a low-grade fever, so in addition to the pre-med Decadron and the Procrit, I had blood cultures and a urine sample taken. Oh, they also wanted to check for protein in my urine. So I got to pee into little cups twice today.

During all this, we had the wig lady come into the chemo room and I ordered a new wig, a nice synthetic wash and wear, short, cute, highlighted. I kind of like it. Hopefully I'll get it next week.

We finally got out of there at 1:30 pm. It was a mighty long time there. But I'm feeling more confident this week, and I'm looking forward to getting some work done.