01.07.2008 - Six Weeks Into Treatment

It is 01.07.2008 and there is just one more week or so of radiation therapy and one cycle of chemotherapy left. Things are still going well with side effects aside from this past weekend. I was very ill this past weekend, but I think it had a lot more to do with me having the flu rather than the treatment. We have all had the flu in our house and had it bad. I was hoping it would skip over me, but I got it too.

I had to skip one radiation therapy session this past week because one of the kids was so ill from the flu. Glad there wasn't a session to attend on Sunday or else I would have had to skip another session because I was so ill. Let's hope that this illness is done passing through our house. So much for flu shots...not that I have ever had any faith in them. The one year that I get a flu shot and am in a "high risk" category, I get the flu really bad. I rarely get sick and won't get one again.

12.29.2007 - Five Weeks Into Treatment

It is 12.29.2007 and I have now completed five weeks of radiation therapy and two cycles of chemotherapy. Both the nurse and doctor that I see weekly at the radiation-oncology office don't know what to do with me because I don't have any of the side effects that most of their other patients have. My blood work results are good every week, hair loss is minimal, I am tolerating chemotherapy very well, etc.

I trimmed my hair again since it was just a little bit shorter where the surgery had been and the radiation has been focused upon. Not that it had much of a chance to grow out since the last time I trimmed it with the clippers. I have tapered the steroid dose down even further and I imagine that within a week or so I won't be taking any steroids any more. I look forward to the time when I am taking as few drugs as possible.

It is wonderful to be in the new house. We had a great Christmas. It is a bit colder than I am used to at this time of year, but I know I will adapt to the weather. Unfortunately, just about everyone in our household has a cold right now.

12.22.2007 - Four Weeks Into Treatment

It is 12.22.2007 and week four has come and passed. I have done four weeks of radiation therapy and am in my second cycle of chemotherapy. No side effects from the chemotherapy so far. As I mentioned, I have experienced hair loss from the radiation therapy, but just in the area where the tumor was since the radiation is focused there. Sunday of last week, I used the clippers with no guard on my whole head, so I am basically bald. You can't tell that there is any hair loss now, but I look like what I used to look like while I was in the police academy. I used to give myself this haircut every summer, so I am used to it. Colorado winters are even colder when you have no hair though. I will taper down the steroid dose even further in a day or two. Not to do too much at one time, but we closed on our new house this past week and are wrapping up the moving process right now. It has been a very busy week here. It is nice to be in the new house though because it is nearly double the size of the rental house we were living in and we can actually unpack all the stuff from our California house.

12.14.2007 - Three Weeks Into Treatment

It is 12.14.2007 and so far I have completed three weeks of radiation therapy and one cycle of chemotherapy. Next week, I will start my second cycle of chemotherapy. I don't feel that much fatigue so far, but I started noticing some hair loss last night and this morning. It is mainly in the area of my scalp where the surgical procedure incision scar is and that makes sense because the tumor tissue was underneath there, so the focused radiation is directed there to irradiate the remaining tumor tissue. The hair will grow back, but not until the radiation therapy is completed. My physician has continued to taper down my steroid dose, which is good because it is only needed to deal with swelling and I don't have much swelling any more. The less medication I have to take the better.

12.08.2007 - Two Weeks Into Treatment

It is 12.08.2007 and it has been two weeks since I started the daily radiation treatments and I have only felt some waves of fatigue, but nothing too persistent. The chemotherapy schedule in place makes it so that I won't begin the second cycle of chemo for another week and a half. My neurooncologist cleared me to resume driving again, but thought it would be a good idea to start slow. The radiation-oncology staff has reminded me that the fatigue may still be coming because the effects of the radiation therapy is cumulative as the treatments continue. It isn't anything to look forward to, but some increased fatigue isn't the worst thing that one could experience. They also said I could experience some hair loss, but I haven't noticed any yet.

12.01.2007 - No Side Effects So Far

It is now 12.01.2007 and I haven't felt any nausea or really any other side effects. While I haven't had to go through any of this before, I would say that I am doing pretty well with it all. When I initially learned of the brain tumor back in late 2004, I felt like if I had to have a mutation (cancer is the result of cellular mutation), I should get some cool power, like the X-MEN. My wife advises that my cool power appears to be not to experience side effects.

Following both the surgeries (early 2005 and late 2007) I never experienced any nausea after having been under general anesthesia. I haven't had any nausea from the chemotherapy as of yet and haven't had any noticeable side effects from the radiation therapy as of yet. After a couple weeks, perhaps things won't be so rosy, but things are going well so far.

11.26.2007 - Treatment Begins

Treatment began this week. 11.26.2007 was a "dry run" of the focused radiation therapy. They called it a "dry run" because it was for fine tuning and calibration.

11.27.2008 was my first focused radiation therapy session. Unfortunately, the visit took over an hour when it was supposed to take only 15 minutes or so and we brought all the kids with us because we thought it would be so brief. They were late in getting me to the machine and then after the session, because the swelling in my head had decreased so significantly since the surgery, they wanted to make a new mesh mask for my head (which keeps my head positioned precisely) and rescan me wearing the mask with the CT machine.

11.28.2007, my brother-in-law volunteered to take me to my appointment. He volunteered for a lot because this was my first long day of treatment. The focused radiation therapy session was very brief and then I had my first IV chemotherapy infusion. They told me the IV session would be 90 minutes or so. Well, it didn't work out that way. We had left the house at 1230 hours and didn't get back home until 1800 hours.

What was a pleasant surprise was to learn that the neurooncologist wanted to change the chemotherapy schedule so that I had higher doses administered per session, but the sessions would be less frequent. The initial schedule was for the IV infusions to take place one day per week throughout the treatment plan and the oral chemotherapy to be taken every week day throughout the treatment plan. Now, I will be doing the IV infusions once every three weeks and the oral chemotherapy daily for a five day period once every three weeks.

They gave me anti-nausea medication with the IV and I haven't felt sick so far. Hopefully the oral chemotherapy won't cause me any nausea either...of course I will be taking anti-nausea medication with the oral chemotherapy as well.