And the marathon begins...

The day started at 5:30 am when we left the house to head to St. Vincent's hospital. This morning Roger had outpatient surgery to implant a "power port" which will be used to ultimately administer the chemo. Basically a port, as we have come to learn, is kind of like a pin cushion under your skin; it has a tube which feeds into one of Roger's veins. The port is in Roger's left upper chest/shoulder area.

The reason ports are used is because it helps reduce the number of times that a patient has to have blood taken or medicine administered through veins in his/her arms. The port is used 90% of the time to take blood, administer chemo, give fluids, etc. In Roger's case, the port will be especially helpful because he has very small veins.

After Roger was released from the hospital, we headed over to meet with the oncologist, Dr. Birhiray. This meeting was to learn the logistics of the chemo treatment next week. The chemo process: on the first day, Roger will be given cisplatin over the course of 6 hours while at the oncology center. Before leaving they will give him a "pack" (kinda like an insulin pump) which will slowly administer the remaining chemo medications over the course of 96 hours. We go back in to their office after the 96th hour to have the pack removed. Roger will also be given radiation at during this first week with the chemo.

From there, Roger will have 4 more weeks, 5 days a week, of radiation without chemo. After completing the radiation, he will go back in for one more week of chemo. And then it will be 3 weeks "off" so that Roger's body can recover from the poison and radiation. If the prescriptions the doctors gave us are any indication, this chemo should prove to be pretty horrible. Of the 5 medications I picked up today - three are for nausea and/or vomit, one is a cream for the skin over Roger's port, and the last is a pain medicine.

Roger has some pain/discomfort tonight but all things considered seems to be doing well. He's alert and chatty. the port is pretty uncomfortable.

We believe we are ready for next week....as much as we can be. Keeping track of all the appointments is very energy consuming. There's so much to keep track of i.e. which doctor you are seeing, what building the doctor is in, etc. Obviously the radiation alone amounts to a ton of office visits - 28 or more a month. I've had to get a new calendar specifically to track the appts for us.