Day 4 - 3

So, Steve is almost done with treatment cycle #3 of biochemo.  He can only have 6 treatments of biochemo, EVER.  So, he is almost halfway finished with treatment.  Let's hope biochemo is the only type of treatment he will ever need!  Last night, after Steve had the chills and took Demerol to stop them, he got a fever again.  His blood pressure was ok, but his heart rate was 140 and he had 102.1 fever.  After getting some Tylenol in him, his fever broke and he was feeling much better.  But, then he started having a lot of anxiety and wasn't able to sleep.  He had started reading The Hunger Games a few days ago, so he started reading hoping he would fall asleep.  He ended up reading almost the whole book.  Finally, he asked for some Xanax to help with his anxiety and to help him sleep.

We got up around 7:30 this morning (as we do every morning) and Steve was feeling decent but still having a bit of anxiety.  He is scheduled to have Ativan every 8 hours for anxiety and nausea, but he never takes it because it KNOCKS HIM OUT!!!  The nurse asked if he wanted the Ativan and when he said no and explained why, she suggested a half dose.  This worked perfectly.  It eliminated his anxiety and he was able to eat breakfast, work, finish reading The Hunger Games, walk around the nurses station, eat a little lunch, etc. We even tried laying in bed together for a while.  We were playing around and trying to take some photos for the blog, but none really turned out.  It was fun anyhow :)

Around 4:30 pm he started feeling bad.  It seems this is the new pattern.....good days and bad evenings.  He felt the chills coming on but fell asleep before they hit him.  He has been dozing on and off since around 5 trying to fight the chills, nausea, and overall "blah" feelings he has.  I'm not sure if I mentioned already, but he has a cold right now through all of this too.  So, I'm sure that isn't helping things.  He is finished with all of his meds for this cycle expect for the IL-2 bag which will drip until @7:30 am and 1 Interferon shot that is due in the morning.  He can only take the Interferon shot if his platelet count is over 50 and as of this morning his platelet count was 53.  So, he may have to skip that shot in the morning (he had the skip the last round of Interferon on the last round due to low platelet count).  Tina, Dr. Kim's PA mentioned today that we may get to go home sometime tomorrow.  We usually go home on Sunday's, so I figured she was just mistaken.  Then, when our day shift nurse was leaving and telling us goodbye, she mentioned that she heard we may be going home tomorrow.  So, we shall see.  It's one of those things that I don't know how I feel about.  It is nice to go home, but it is nice for Steve to relax with no distractions also.  Since his IL-2 drip ends at 7:30 am, I'm not so sure that just a few hours recovery time is enough.  We shall see.  We will talk to Dr. Kim about it in the morning.