Sunshine and Spring

The boys are outside playing on the backyard playground.  The grass is turning green, and it appears that winter is a memory.  Besides that, I am 75% done with chemo!  To be honest, Week 1 of round three was not fun.  I did not throw up or have any major problems, but I felt sick all the time.  I slept more than I though was humanly possible.  I no longer was running up stairs.  Instead, I was short of breath, and my heart was pounding.  Food was disgusting (even water), and my ears were ringing most of the time.  One sort of funny thing happened while I was watching a tear jerker on TV.  My tears HURT my eyes.  I think we have a new term:  CHEMO TEARS.

Johns Hopkins told me to call when the last cycle starts.  That will be on Good Friday.  They will then schedule an appointment five weeks later to take a look.  Two weeks after that, they intend to schedule surgery.  In the meantime, I will have an MRI and CT scan.  All of this will be a re-staging of the cancer and a report on how well the chemo went.  I will ask, but I do not think there is any thought that the surgery will be avoided.  Since bladder cancer has a high recurrence rate, the thinking is that they want to remove as much of the field where it might recur as is reasonable.

I returned to sleep this afternoon after today's treatment.  I was surprised that I was so zonked.  I feel a little better and am looking forward to dinner.  Danny asked if I could take the boys to a park.  I told him that I might be able to do that tomorrow.

I am looking forward a beautiful weekend and to better days with no chemo next Friday.