My Battle with Merkel Cell Cancer

was down. I had no appetite. No food tasted good to me. I understand the need for the
radiation, but the symptoms are mostly related to the Taxotere, being given to enhance
the effect of radiation, rather than for its chemotherapeutic effect.
Today, I had my 12th of 25 radiation treatments and a visit with Dr. Flam. I also had the
third of what I expect to be five infusions of Taxotere. I am feeling substantially better. I
attribute this to my bowels returning to some semblance of normalcy. My WBC is up to
4400, not a huge improvement but better. My hemoglobin dropped from 10.9 to 9.9.
Because of that, I was given a shot of Procrit, (epoetin alpha), to stimulate the production
of red blood cells. Platelets were down slightly from 129,000 to 104,000.
I was feeling so discouraged that I wanted to discuss discontinuing the Taxotere and just
going with radiation,but now I feel I can stay the course.
Thanks to Patty at Dr. Flam's office, the issue about the coverage for Carofate has been
resolved. Apparently the insurance will only cover one generic brand, and I paid $7 for 3
weeks supply. The pharmacy originally obtained the wrong brand, and I asked what it
would be out of pocket. $500. What a messed up system!
Dr. Flam suggested last week when I complained about the logistics of getting everything
done suggested I come in at 7:30 AM today. He said I would have my labs done, see him
get the infusion started and get to Radiation Therapy by my 8:30 appointment. This would
work better than having the radiation first, and then coming to get the labs started after
9:00 in the usual traffic jam it his office. The techs at XRT were skeptical that this could
be done and they were right. It all ran together at 8:30 when I was about to leave for XRT
and Dr. Flam was ready to see me. Nevertheless, it worked out better than last week.
Judy has been wonderful. This week, she has been transporting Eva, our 10 year old
granddaughter to Good Company Players acting camp, for 9:00 AM and picking her up at
noon. Today, she woke up to take me to treatment for 7:30, took the dog to the park,
picked up Eva to take her to her camp. Later, she picked Eva up and picked me up
afterwards, and we had Eva here for most of the afternoon.
Tomorrow, I will drive myself.
Go Giants! It looks like we will get Beltran from the Mets.
Now, if we don't need to use Barry Zito we should have a good shot at a repeat
championship.
Posted by David Shuster at 07:46PM (-07:00)
I Am Put On IV Hyperalimentation
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
I am writing this while receiving the third and last 2 liter IV fluid infusion over the past 3
days.
Since my last post, I have not felt up to writing down my thoughts and feelings. I will start
with a litany of complaints.
Everything tastes terrible. It is very hard to force food into my body when everything
tastes so bad.
My mouth is very dry. My tongue feels like sandpaper. It is white, with cracks in it. I don't
think I have Candida, (Thrush).
I am having difficulty swallowing. I can get stuff past my throat but it does not go through
my esophagus easily, and creates discomfort on the way down. I also have pretty much
continuous heartburn.
I am having upper abdominal cramps. I had severe diarrhea earlier in the week. This has
subsided.
As a result of these complaints, I have decided to stop the Taxotere, with the agreement
of Dr. John who examined me on Monday. In addition to these complaints, it turns out my
My Battle with Merkel Cell Cancer
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