Back to treatment

Last Friday, March 9, Teresa and I made our way back to MSK. I wasn’t terribly optimistic. The last time I’d been taken off treatment because of my liver’s reaction to the chemotherapy – in the fall of 2017 – it had taken two months before MSK was satisfied that my liver was restored to health. This time it had just been two weeks. I also hadn’t been feeling that well (more on this below), so I didn’t have any strong intuition that everything was now working as it should inside me.

But our experience on March 9 was completely different from what it had been on our previous visit, on February 23. That time the whole process of getting my blood tested and the reports submitted to my oncologist had gone awry, with the result that when we left the oncologist’s office we didn’t know, and neither did she, what my blood numbers actually were. This time the testing took place promptly, and when we arrived in the oncologist’s office her staff already had my results (though they weren’t yet completely posted on the MSK portal so that we could see them too).

The results were good. In fact they were really good. All my liver numbers were back in normal range. Meanwhile my platelets, which had dropped quite sharply (platelets aren’t a liver issue, but platelet production can also be affected by chemotherapy; in fact, this is a quite common side-effect), were now also back solidly in normal range. This particular change no doubt owes a great deal to the many platelet-encouraging foods that Teresa had fed me since our February 23 visit. (Papayas, avocados, lentils – platelet foods are good!)

Even with these good results, the oncologist might have felt more time off was needed. I’d had pretty good blood work at one point during the previous chemo holiday, and MSK had felt that what I needed then was additional downtime. But this time there was no delay. The actual chemo dose was reduced – just a little, the oncologist said – and later that morning it was injected into my pump. So I’m actually on chemotherapy, via the pump, as I write this.

That’s the good news, and the main news. The only fly in this ointment is that I’ve had a return of the painful stomach cramping that I’ve written about on this blog in the past. The worst night was Tuesday, March 6. As it happened, that night we were at Teresa’s mom’s house because of an impending snowstorm. We knew that Teresa would need to be there to deal with the snow – her mom wound up with about two and a half feet in her backyard – and though the snow wasn’t really due in force till Wednesday, it seemed best to be there in advance. And Teresa was concerned that if she left me at home while going to take care of her mom, I might suddenly need her help too. I didn’t think that was very likely, since I hadn’t had any sudden episodes in quite a while, but I conceded the point. Up we went to her mom’s house (it’s about 15 miles north of ours), and almost as soon as we got there my stomach went on the blink. About 5 hours later, when I was completely emptied out, it settled down, and the next day I felt just about normal, and while the snow came down in really remarkable quantities I was able to do some writing. 

The best thing about this digestive trouble is that it doesn’t actually appear to be a symptom of my illness. Instead, the word the oncologist used – and Teresa had also picked up on – is “kinks.” Not kinks of the sensual kind, but rather of the plumbing variety. There’s a lot going on in my abdomen these days: the chemotherapy pump itself, the catheter leading from the pump on my lower left side over and up to my liver, the surgical staples and maybe some scar tissue left over from the surgery that installed the pump, and of course the liver itself, functioning pretty well but still hosting a bunch of tumors. The net result: sometimes things get blocked. The cure, besides patience, may actually have something to do with relaxation and visualization of unblocking – though in the middle of one of these episodes, peaceful visualization is not easy to achieve.

Anyway, no real harm done. Still, the issue hasn’t quite gone away. I haven’t had anything like a full-blown stomach episode this week but I’ve had more discomfort than I would have liked. I’m taking as many medications for digestive issues as I can, hoping to get things to become once again uneventful, and reminding myself that I should be visualizing an unkinked digestive system.