Greetings from Club Chemo!

Greetings from Club Chemo—having a ball . . . wish you were here! Hang ten, dudes!

Love, Bob!

Bob has been at the U since Wednesday; I brought him in at 7:30 a.m. that morning and went back home, to feed and walk the dogs, get ready for work. Not much I can do at this point, so he told me to go home, come back later . . . To give you an example of how far he's come since all this began, when I dropped him off at the Masonic Cancer Center, he walked himself into the clinic, where they took blood, then walked himself over to the hospital (with a nurse escort, of course). Even just three weeks ago, he would not have been able to do that. I credit at least part of that with getting on better pain management drugs; maybe the chemo is also already shrinking the tumor, too, but we won't know that for sure for another few weeks.

Bob had a PICC line inserted on Wednesday morning (PICC stands for peripherally inserted central catheter. I like to learn the names of all the acronyms, the drugs, the procedures. Not sure why, as the more I learn the scarier this all becomes . . . ). The PICC line is an IV line that can be used for prolonged periods of time. Not only can drugs and fluids be administered through it, but blood can also be drawn from it. From what I hear, nurses love 'em because the PICCs make their jobs easier. They may leave it in Bob for a while, since he'll be back for this same chemo treatment next week, and then two days later have another round of Doxil and Cisplatin, and the PICC can be used for that, too.

Before starting the methotrexate (let me remind you, because I've thought about this every minute of every day since we were told this: this is the drug that is given in lethal doses, which requires a rescue drug to counteract the effect; it's the drug that, other than death, is tolerated quite well. Yup. That's what they tell us. With a straight face.), Bob was started on a regimen of fluids through the IV Wednesday morning, into the evening hours. Methotrexate, among other things (e.g. death, did I mention that side effect?), can be toxic to the kidneys and liver, so the gist of the treatment is to flood the body with fluids, to get the pH to an acceptable level before administering the drug. This was done over the course of several hours. The drug wasn't given to Bob until later Wednesday evening, around 8 p.m. He got an IV dose over the course of around 4-5 hours, after which they administered the "rescue drug" (ummm, yeah. Rescue drug.) and lots more fluids, to flush the drug out of Bob's system. Oh, I forgot to mention that the drug is glowing yellow-orange, and that nurses who administered the drug came arrived in hazmat suits, and that they told Bob to throw away his underwear, should he dribble any urine on them . . . the underlying message here is, we're putting this stuff inside of you, but should it get outside of you, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T TOUCH IT!!!! but don't worry, most people tolerate this poison very well . . .

The average stay for this treatment is about five days; some people stay longer, just depends on how each body is able to flush the drug out of the system. Bob's oncologist told him that the quickest stay was a patient who was out of the hospital in three days, but to not count on that. My husband is not average. He never does anything like "everyone else," sometimes to my chagrin. So, I'm cautiously optimistic with the "five days" thing. I told Bob he'd either beat that patient's record of three days by being out in two, or he'll end up with complications that force him to stay two weeks. No middle ground for Bob, no siree. . .

So I got a text from Bob Wednesday night while at work: New roommate! Old f*cker who's hard of hearing . . . think I'll snip his IV . . . nickname's Fuzzy. God I hate roommates . . . I couldn't imagine how someone named Fuzzy could instill such a visceral response—he sounds like someone's cuddly grandpa—until I called Bob later, on my drive home. He told me Fuzzy is a crotchety old guy who's ready to break out of the hospital as soon as he gets his chance. Drops the f-bomb like nobody's business, told the docs he slams 5-6 beers a day and don't start in on him and his smoking, because nobody's gonna tell him he's gotta quit! Godddam nobody! Then Fuzzy'll get on his cell phone and subject Bob to his one-sided hard-of-hearing conversations: This is the worst effing hospital I've ever been in! They tell me I'm supposed to stay till Friday, but I don't care what they say! I'm effing leaving tomorrow . . . you better have an effing beer and smoke waitin' for me when I get out, goddamit! Fun times at Club Chemo!

I was going to stop by after work on Wednesday, but they had just started the methotrexate, which meant lots of action going on in Bob's room. He told me to just go home and come back after work the following day. Very quiet and lonely at home without him there. Just fed the dogs and went straight to bed.

Penny and Jim came up yesterday morning and were with Bob all afternoon, which made me feel better about not being able to see Bob till after work, which would be nearly a day and a half since I last had been with him . . .they came bearing gifts of Rice Krispy bars and chocolate chip bars, a U of M sweatshirt and a new fleece pullover (because Penny was horrified by the one Bob wears around the house—one pock-marked with burn holes from the piles of buckthorn he torches in the backyard. I guess it's nice to know Polartec is flame retardant. You should see the stocking cap he wears while playing pyrotechnics. Looks like Swiss cheese. It's amazing he hasn't gone up in flames yet . . .)

I stopped up to see Bob last night after work. He told me he has a little bit of nausea from the chemo, but not bad. Has been able to tolerate small amounts of food, spread throughout the day. He had fruit salad, ice cream, yogurt . . . He gets very sleepy very quickly, so doesn't think he'll be up for visitors, at least not yet. The night before, after all the fluids pumped into his body, he was up every ten minutes, he said, peeing like a racehorse every time. Over and over, as such, he didn't get any sleep. Pretty sure he's now making up for that. He doesn't want to be rude, dropping off to sleep in the middle of a conversation, as he did last night when I was there; kept apologizing for nodding off. I thought he looked especially tired, then I realized he's lost most of his eyelashes. Makes his eyes look very sleepy, without their dark fringe. I was at the hospital about an hour until his voice got sluggish and his eyes closed. We said our goodbyes and I left him to sleep. I stole a quick glance at Fuzzy in the bed next to Bob, but he was also sleeping . . .

When I got home, Bob called to make sure I made it home okay. He told me he thought the mouth sores were already returning, because he felt something on his tongue. He showed the nurse, and she agreed, looked like a mouth sore to her. He couldn't leave it alone, was fiddling and picking at it, and before he knew it, he had picked the sore right off his tongue! And it didn't hurt anymore! A miracle! He called the nurse over and stuck out his tongue so she could have a look. After examining his tongue, she paused a moment and said, "You had fruit salad for dinner tonight, right? Ummm . . I think that was a piece of pineapple stuck to your tongue."