Columbus and the Valley

Pin Cushion – Part B

With the agony of itching a mere distant memory (I lied, despite all the terrific home remedies — and I diligently tried them all — the itching is not only a distant memory, but is so close I can still scratch it!) we’re steeling up to be the “B” side of a human pin cushion at Duke University Hospital’s high-dose interleukin 2 program. We’ll be leaving again on Sunday morning, if my lab report is clean enough for me to be readmitted for treatment. It was late going up to Dr. Morse’s office and I haven’t been able to confirm with him my creatinine level and whether or not we’re a go for this Monday or the following Monday.

I was able to drop by the office for a few minutes today after I went in for lab work at JBACC. Man, it was good to see my office mates and we got the great pleasure to see former tenants of ours, College Resources Center’s dynamic trio Genie Mize, Hope Phillips and Jean Flowers, who stopped by to bring us a bodacious bag o’ goodies for the trip. I love those three women and we miss them so much. It was serendipitous that we got to meet Genie and get back together with Hope and Jean for the too-short time we had while they were in our building. It felt good to have my whole harem back together again. It is hard to get in a word as the only “male member” of the group. Our building at 10th and 3rd has been affectionately been called One Penis Place (OPP) over the years. Now with videographer, Danny Beard, on hand, my gender numbers have grown by 100%.

An update: the gout is on the way out, I’ve almost completely peeled off the entire top layer of my skin, I’ve pretty much lost the water weight I packed on last week during treatment, Andy Pippas and his entire staff are still THE BOMB, the John B. Amos Cancer Center is an absolute healthcare jewel, we appreciate the readers of this blog and we’re ready for the second part of round number one. I’ve got a giant bag of my dad’s peanut brittle, which we’ll be using to try to bribe our way into one of the larger corner rooms at Duke on the 9100 floor.

We’ll blog from NC to keep everyone up-to-date with our efforts to get this cancer gone.

 

Duke Appointments Set

Just in the nick of time (before I did something I would regret later), like fire off a blistering email to everyone including the NC State Patrol, I finally got the call from Dr. Dan George’s nurse practitioner, Sarah Wood. Sitting here, red in the face and feeling like my head is in a vice, maybe now I can calm down a bit now that I know we’re on the way to Duke for the next chapter in this cancer book.

We will leave here this Sunday, August 26, and meet appointments at Duke on Monday at midday with Dr. Dan George and in the afternoon with Dr. Michael Morse. I just sent them all my scan, lab and pathology reports from our very recent trip to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center so that I can maybe dodge having to do another round of scans so soon. In addition to these reports, they’ll need to do some pulmonary testing on me to make sure my heart is healthy enough to withstand the HD-IL2 treatment. I’ve never had a cardiac issue and I’ve been able to ride my bicycle and walk briskly, so I should qualify well enough. The only issue I’m concerned about is my creatinine (kidney function).

These tests/scans should take 2-3 days. That gets us out to Thursday or Friday of next week. With the Labor Day holiday on Monday, I don’t know whether they’ll want to start treatment on Monday or Tuesday. So, we’ll likely come home if we get out of there on Thursday. I’m so relieved to at least know we’ve got a plan in place and that it will begin to be implemented soon.

Sorry for the short post, but I wanted to let everyone know about our scheduling.