the sound of the bell chiming

"Ring this bell three times well

Its toll to clearly say

My treatments are done

this course is run and

I am on my way"

Ringing the bell in the oncology area signifies the end of a patient's chemo treatment. This is obviously Roger - ringing the bell three times well today, his last day of chemo treatment. It was an emotional moment, he was encircled by loved ones including the fabulous nursing staff who cheered Roger on. The hardest part isn't over but the catalist of all his terrible feeling is done. The chemo wrecking ball will continue to swing devastation on Roger's system for the next several weeks, but at least we won't be putting any more of that nasty stuff into his system.

I'm sure the oncology center had no idea what it was in for as our family and friends descended on them. The picture to the left includes from right to left in the front row is my dad, my mom, Roger's mom, Roger, me, back row from left to right is our friends Joe and Katie, my brother, and Roger's mom's significant other. The moment , though all of 60 seconds, was too special to not be shared.

We had two moments of deja vu today...first in the morning when we met with Dr. Liebross, the radiologist. He could obviously see that Roger was not feeling well and that his energy was gone....that Roger was "gone" for all practical purposes. So this quiet little doctor out of the blue said to Roger, "have you been able to work anything out with those nuns yet?" Remember, Dr. Liebross was the doctor who Roger announced to that he (Roger) would just have to have sex with prostitues if he (Roger) was going to be radioactive from the radiation. The two of them discussed the merits of IU Hospital compared to St. V's hospital. You'll have to go back to the August post for the original story. Anyway it was so out of the blue - so deja vu - that we all ended up laughing. The second deja vu moment was when Marishka the nurse was un-hooking Roger's IV just before he was going to ring the bell. She was taping the port device on his chest and trying to arrange some of the tubing as our family and friends were looking on. Someone asked what she was doing and Roger announced to all "playing with my nipples". Poor Marishka - shaking with laughter just shook her head.

The day wore Roger out - so he slept from 3:00 on. Waking to have dinner and is once again back in bed. We're hoping the days to come are as painless as possible. The realist in us, knows that we have a lot more really bad days ahead of us. We are planning on going to the hospital tomorrow and Sunday to get fluids in an attempt to keep Roger from getting dehydrated. He is NOT drinking enough fluids because it hurts too much when he swallows.

We'll continue to keep you updated on this progress. 4 more treatments of radiation this coming week and then he will officially be done with chemo/radiation. The schedule will then be 3-4 weeks "off" so that Roger's system can try to repair itself. At the end of this period will be the surgery.

I mentioned yesterday that I was going to discuss the conversation with the genetic counselor. I won't go into all the details now but the long and short of it, the test results confirm that his sister Denise has the cancer gene, but Roger doesn't. Everyone - including the doctors and nurses - just don't believe the test results. We'll see what Dr. Birhiray has to say Monday morning.

~ R & A