GlobalMegaBlog

So, today was another chemo day, but before the chemo started, we met with Dr. Kovach to talk about the results of the CT from last week. Basically, I’m responding really well to the treatment. He said my spleen has gone back to normal size and one of the larger lymph nodes had shrunk from 8cm to 4cm (That’s about 3 inches to 1.5 inches, imperial fans). So, all in all, it’s going really well and most likely I’ll only end up having a total of 6 treatments instead of 8. Which means that, since I had one today, there may only be 2 more to go.

Chemo itself was pretty much the same as usual today. They dropped one of the 4 chemicals from the chemo this week because it’s causing the ends of my fingers to go numb and they don’t want it to do any permanent damage. With a bit of luck, maybe this will mean my sense of taste won’t go away this time as well. I guess time will tell. I’m fully prepared to eat as many curries as necessary to get some sensation of taste. It’s a tough assignment, but someone has to do it.

CT scan today. I got up at 8am and started working on the 2 litres of barium goop which they gave me to drink. I managed to get down about 1 and 3/4 litres before I reached the point where another mouthful was going to have me projectile vomitting. In the days leading up to today, I was worried that maybe I was building it up in my mind and it wasn’t going to be nearly as appalling to drink as I thought. Sadly, however, my mind was quite right. It was appalling to drink. This stuff has the consistancy of.. well, I have one analogy, but it’s not good for public consumption. Let’s just say it has the consistancy of fairly thick wallpaper paste and you can use your imagination.

Anyway, the CT didn’t take long. They put in an IV and injected more contrast into my bloodstream and 10 minutes later we were done. As I was getting ready to leave, the nurse mentioned that there’s an alternate type of the oral contrast, which is more like crystal light.. they don’t typically give it out unless you’re having real trouble with the other goop because it’s expensive. Frankly, I don’t care how much the damn stuff costs, I’m going with that next time.

Results are due next week (on Thursday in the morning, before my 4th chemo session). Hopefully everything will be looking good.

I just started reading “Reaper Man” by Terry Pratchett again, and this quote near the beginning made me laugh out loud. Thought I’d share it with everyone :)

"What makes the Counting Pines particularly noteworthy, however, is the way they count. Being dimly aware that human beings had learned to tell the age of a tree by counting the rings, the original Counting Pines decided that this was why humans cut trees down.

Overnight every Counting Pine readjusted its genetic code to produce, at about eye-level on its trunk, in pale letters, its precise age. Within a year they were felled almost into extinction by the ornamental house number plate industry, and only a very few survive in hard-to-reach areas."