9toes's blog

Went for the third round of  Chemo this past Thursday, 5/13. Th appointment was for 3 but they didn’t call me back until 4. They were waiting on the blood work to come in, I think. Anyway, we didn’t get out until about 9. What a fun day.

They removed my J-tube this afternoon. It was a feeding tube that was the last tube from the surgery.

Started Chemo on 4/1 an so far I’m doing OK with it. Got an IV infusion that day and now it’s 7 pills a day for the next 2 weeks.

Went to M.D. Anderson Tuesday and saw a new doctor. She is a medical oncologist as opposed to the surgical oncologist that I’ve been seeing. This appointment was to discuss chemo options. She went over two different regimens with me. The one I’m going with will be a three week cycle including an infusion and two weeks of 7 pills a day with a week off before it repeats. This will go on for three to six months.

I had another follow up on Monday, March 15. The surgeon says that things are still progressing nicely. The only hiccup is that I had lost weight since my previous visit. So, I am going to have to work on that.

Sorry I haven’t been keeping this up to date. I’ll try to be better in the future.
In the meantime, I’ll try to bring things up to date.

The surgery was on 1/13 and went well. They released me on 2/8. I had a follow up appointment with my surgeon on 2/18 and h said that things looked very good for where I was out of the surgery. Saw him again yesterday and he is still please with my recovery so far.

I will try to remember to post any significant updates here as they happen.

My facebook account has a few more details if you are interested and don’t mind sifting though some stuff: http://www.facebook.com/jim.jackoviak

They released me from the hospital for a few days since all they would do until Wednesday’s surgery is monitor me. I hsould get a call tomorrow letting me know what time they want me back on Wednesday morning.

At this point we are looking at Wednesday for the surgery. Maybe Monday, if there is a cancellation.

We talked to the doctor this afternoon, and the surgery is now scheduled for this Wednesday. He says it should be 10-15 hours and I’ll be in something like critical care on Thursday. After that, I’ll be in hospital for about 4 weeks. It will likely be up to 3 months till feeling somewhat normal.

Had my first visit to MD Anderson on Monday.  Talked to the physician’s assistant and got some more info on the surgery. It’s going to involve a 3 week hospital stay and 6-8 weeks total recovery time. OUCH! After that went on to give blood, get a chest x-ray and a CT scan. I’ll talk to the doctor next Monday. In the mean time, I got a call from the P.A. this morning saying that they may be able to squeeze me in on the 6th for the surgery. If not, it would be on the 27th.

Today I got drained again. They got 7 liters this time.