Back in the chemo saddle

  
   Wednesday was another good day with a lttile biking.  Thursday it was back to Jeff for Lab tests, meeting with Littman and Eleanor and chemo.  The tests were pretty good.  The first chemo drug is oxaliplatin which causes cold sensitivity which I'm pretty sensitive to.  Just going out today for walk with gloves I had a lot of tingling in my fingers.  I usually need gloves to hold a container of ice cream but was lucky to be able to eat some ice cream slowly last night.  The second chemo drug is irinotecan which they call "I ran to the can" because it causes diarrhea.  My dosage was reduced by about 25% because of my previous strong reactions to it.  The 5FU is the 3rd drug and the one in which I pump for 46 hours.  All 3 can cause nausea and tiredness.  I hope I can stay up for the final World Srices game tonight.  Last night I was tired and went to sleep after the top of the 7th inning figuring Texas had won and missed a very exciting game.
   I also gave blood for a test of the Bracca gene which would reveal if my cancer might be hereditary as there is a lot of cancer on my mother's side from which I've always felt I inherited.  If the result is positive, the good news would be Littman thinks she has some pretty good protocols for such people.  The bad side would be that Rachel would be more vulnerable but at least she would know to be on the lookout early for any evidence of cancer.
   Our chemo nurse Linda was very nice and had recovered herself from non-hodgkins lymphoma.
   We realized that the Reading Market is only 2 blocks from the chemo place so Linda was able to pick up some better food for lunch and later for us.  I was able to have some Amish barbecued chicken wings and Linda could clean my bones like a maggot.  Her specialty is cleaning chicken bones and ribs to such a degree that they probably could be transplanted back into a chicken or pig.
   I'm hoping to feel well enough this weekend to see some more movies from the film festival.
   Hope you all have a good weekend.
Elkan - Friday evening