Friday, June 20, 2008

3rd Chemo (of 4) & Camping

After a wonderful break camping in PA, Karen's back in chemo again. Today she had her 3rd treatment of CPT-11 since the last scans. As you may recall Karen gets CPT-11 every 3 weeks and Erbitux every week. She's having some "toxicity" to the Erbitux and so was given a break from that this week.

The CPT-11 is causing slurred speech and so the treatment was stretched to 5 hours instead of 3. Despite the slower IV, Karen got extremely nauseous and experienced some gagging and dry-heaving. Some heavy anti-nausea meds were added to the protocol and a big bag of fluids. All-in-all we got to the hospital at 9AM and left at 5:30PM.



As I mentioned we had a really great few days away with the kids. We chose to rent a cabin and didn't rough it too much. The trip included stroking a frog, waking a butterfly, feeding some goats, an underground cave, a trip to the Zoo, the Science museum, swimming, paddle boats and a beautiful sunset. The kids did great and it was terrific to spend the time with them and share in their fun.

I'm traveling on business this week from Tuesday which is not great timing. Karen will have her sister Sarah as company. As with all chemo weeks, we hope the week goes quickly.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice Smiles... Great to see your happiness....

Hold Fast

Don MacLeod

Anonymous said...

What a gorgeous photo of all of you. Makes you realise what life is all about! Hope the week goes as well as it can. Love to all
Teresa x

Anonymous said...

Beautiful picture. You all look amazing, especially you Karen.
Hope to see you soon!!!!
Kenda