Cycle 3, Week 1

Well folks, we’ve reached the end of Cycle 3’s “week on”.

Cycle 2 hit Shaun on the Thursday but this time around, it started to kick in on Wednesday. When I ask him how exactly it feels the answer is usually, “toxic”. It almost sounds like a really bad hangover. More specifically he’s exhausted, his ears sometimes ring, and his stomach is off although this seems to be resolved with the hardest core anti-nausea medication. This stuff is called Prochlorperazine (for anyone who may be going through a similar experience) and was originally used as an anti-psychotic. According to Shaun, it mellows him out. I’ve never really met anyone who requires less mellowing but hey if it works, I’m in!

And it’s a good thing he took one on Thursday morning. The guy who usually manages Shaun’s drip (Manny – he’s the best) wasn’t available so another dude tried (and failed) to take his place. Apparently this guy awkwardly inserted the needle off to the side (??) of Shaun’s arm and tapped his vein a little too well. After they cleaned up the blood and gave Shaun a few minutes to regain colour in his face, they tried again and all went according to plan. It’s official: no more jerk doctors AND no more crazy IV dudes – we’re waiting for as long as we have to in order to see the normal people.

Meanwhile, the common side effects he’s ISN’T experiencing include mouth sores, extreme dry skin, vomiting, weakness and numbness in hands/feet. I can’t say whether this has anything to do with his naturopathic regime but for those of you who’ve expressed an interest, here are the items he’s taking:

• L-Glutamine powder – he gargles and swallows this twice a day to prevent mouth sores and reduce the impact of the chemo on his stomach lining.
• Salt toothpaste – as above, this is supposed to reduce the likelihood of mouth sores. Believe it or not, it doesn’t taste as bad as it sounds.
• Modified citrus pectin – supposedly helps in stopping or slowing metastases by acting like ‘fly paper’ for cancer cells.
• AHCC (Active Hexose Correlated Compound) – this has replaced the now infamous Helixor (mistletoe). It’s a mushroom extract originating from Japan and has been proven to enhance the body’s NK (natural killer) cells. Like Helixor, its purpose is to lessen the long term negative effects of chemotherapy and help you feel like less crap when you’re going through it.

So we wait until Tuesday, then another Tuesday, then the Friday meeting. In addition to the latest tumour marker results, we’ll be anxious to see how Shaun’s blood cell counts are doing. Particularly his white count was very low by the end of Cycle 2, so I would imagine another cycle will have even more negative impact. At this point he’s very vulnerable to germs and infections of any kind, but if his count falls too far below 1.0 they cannot safely administer chemotherapy. In that case, he would get what’s called Neupogen which is a drug that stimulates the creation of white blood cells and would allow him to carry on with Cycle 4. Thank God for great drug plans.

And speaking of Shaun’s 4^th and final cycle, I emailed Lance Armstrong’s doctor – Dr. Lawrence Einhorn – who literally developed the treatment for testicular cancer that increased the survival rate from 10% to over 90% back in 1974. He got back to me no more than 5 hours later! I wanted to get a sense of his recommendations for Cycle 4 and possible next steps to ensure the absolute best outcome. He had some interesting feedback and offered to discuss Shaun’s case with our oncologist!! I’m not sure how this works from a financial perspective, but it certainly seems like a great opportunity. We’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, I found a doctor at McMaster University who has conducted a great deal of research on the long term outcomes of advanced testicular cancer cases depending on treatments. His name is Dr. Shayegan and he has happily agreed to meet with Shaun and provide his perspective. Not to mention we’ve got Andre Fleck on the case in K-W, so we’re feeling pretty covered ;).

Here’s a little something to kick off your weekend. It may look like a CHiPs convention, but it’s actually the Stilwell boys and their papa last weekend.
You can see where they get their good looks:

Thanks to Andre, Louise, Mike V., Lori, and Pete & Barb for volunteering to car pool this week!

And of course thanks to all of you for continuing to check in, send cards, donate, find me a cleaning lady (thanks girls!), and generally care so much about both of us.

Much love,

xo J & S