Day One of Taxol Begins

Today the new chemo regimen begins. The technical name is Paclitaxel, but they just refer to it as Taxol (the brand name). The list of possible reactions is long but the most common are signs of infection/fever, chills, cough; low white blood cell counts; numbness and tingling in hands and feet; muscle or joint pain; nausea and vomiting; shortness of breath, flushing of face; hair thinning or hair loss; skin rash, itch; diarrhea; bruising, bleeding, red spots on skin. Sounds pleasant huh? But most every one of these were side effects from his last two regimens and his were minimal so at this point we can only hope for the best. Only a couple are new possibilities. The one major change, the fever limit is 100 degrees now. We will be doing more triage calls rather than emergency department visits, hopefully. There is a recurring theme here today: hope.

We are back in infusion now waiting for the pharmacy to send up his chemo. Good part, Joe's former Stedman Jr. High student, Jason, is his nurse today. Joe always gets a little extra attention when Jason is in charge. Right now he is getting his pre-fluids and relaxing in the lounge chair. Since this infusion is shorter, he got a choice of a chair or bed and chose the chair. That is my selfish choice too since I get a nice cushioned semi-recliner too.

This weekend was a very good one for Joe. He was able to do the Durham Public Schools All-County Chorus rehearsal on Friday and then the performance on Saturday as the accompanist as well as both church services at PGUMC on Sunday. Then last night. Our cousins Steve and Darr visited from Asheville and we went out to dinner and then to DPAC to see "Warhorse". I hope lots of people had the chance to see it as it was an incredible show. Emotional, extremely well acted and the mechanical/puppeteer horses were amazing. We were all awestruck by it. Truly a great way to end the weekend.

I dropped Joe off at 7 a.m. at the Duke Cancer Center for him to have his labs today and I went on to the office for an hour and a half. I was back here a little after 9 a.m. (his scheduled chemo time) but instead found him still waiting to see Dr. Zafar. So I got to join in for the doctors appointment too. Now we wait for his infusion, and see what if any reactions/side effects he has. Time will tell. Right now he is on the edge of a nap. Once they do get him going, I might try that myself.

It was a great weekend and we are looking forward to an equally great week. Take care folks and thank you for the caring and the support.