9toes's blog

I saw the pain management doc last week. With the fact that the meds don’t seem to be doing the trick, he suggested a procedure called a nerve block.  That is scheduled for this Friday, Oct. 21. I’ll meet with the anesthesia people on Thursday to discuss it further and get a phone number to call that afternoon for the time. Also on Thursday, I have an appointment with an oncologist at MD Anderson’s Katy location for a consultation. I believe that we will be setting up the chemotherapy schedule. I’ll try to remember to update here once I know more.

Well, it’s been over a year since I put anything up here. In that time I have had a bout of pancreatitis and another surgery at MD Anderson. This time the surgery only involved a 2 week stay and a total of 2 months out of work. The next step is going to be more chemotherapy. Fortunately, I can do the chemo closer to home. So, it would be a 5 minute drive each way versus a 1 hour, and free parking. They haven’t given me a schedule yet on when we’ll start the treatments. I’ll try to be better about updating things here just in case anyone still reads this.

pancreatitis

Grandma and I went for my most recent chemo treatment on 8/26. When I saw the doctor beforehand, she told me that she would be dropping one of the infusion drugs. This cut the IV time down from about 4 hours to around one and a half. I have two more rounds scheduled at the moment and she wants to see me before the second one. Which is on 10/7. This will be right around the 6 month mark, and she initially said she didn’t want to go more that that on the chemo. So, maybe, we’ll be done for a while.

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.