I don’t know why I am so bad a updating the blog. I like doing it, so I am not sure what my problem is….

Phoenix was great. I attached a few pictures at the bottom. We had a great place to stay so lots of time spent in the pool. We also made it to a baseball game, golfed, mini-golfed and had a nice walk through the Desert Botanical Garden (http://www.dbg.org). The garden had a really amazing blown glass exhibition from artist Dale Chihuly.

For the most part Phoenix was pretty relaxing but I do like fun distractions. I have been able to relax a little more lately, but I still find I need to be engaged to take my mind off the pain and dark thoughts.

As far as health, I have been feeling quite good. Weight has been pretty steady around 150-153. I had a chemo round the day after we got back and I have another session on Wednesday this week. I met with the Radio-Oncologist last week about the stereotactic body radiation. Unfortunately, I am still not a candidate for this. I have too many lesions in my liver for this to be successful. Even with this more precise radiation it still takes 3 times the area you are trying to destroy. So basically for a 1cm spherical lesion he will destroy a 3cm spherical area. So to go after 10 lesions it will destroy too much of my healthy liver tissue. If I was to get to a point where I only had 1 or 2 lesions then it is possible. But that is pretty much the answer to any local (liver directed) treatments I have looked into.

They said they could radiate 1 or 2 if they were causing pain, but this is only considered palliative. I am definitely not there yet and I told him I hope I never see him again. (Unless I only have 1 or 2 lesions left of course…) I wasn’t overly discouraged – I don’t think I was really expecting it to be an answer. But it would have been nice to have more options…

I also started some anti-depressants the beginning of April. I went on a drug called Wellbutrin. Doc told me it would take about 3 weeks to start noticing any effects. Well, within a week I started to notice my irritability was a little more prominent. Then about 4 days into our Phoenix trip I started to get some anxiety and panic attacks and for no reason. Usually, if my headspace is muddled it is because I am thinking about something related to my cancer. This time, these attacks came out of the blue. And, I didn’t think about it at first but these attacks started around the 3 week mark. Coincidence?

I also slept less. This was an active anti-depressant, which is what I need, but it affected my sleeping too much. I would be wide awake at 5:30am and trying to get to bed was also a challenge. But what really freaked me out was the flight back to Calgary. About an hour into the flight I started to find it difficult to breath. Asthmatics say it feels like breathing through a straw. This was exactly the same for me. It was like I had to force the air in and then out. So being on a plane and feeling like this, I started to panic. I finally took an Ativan which helped with the anxiety, but it didn’t help the breathing. It lasted the rest of the night and by the next morning I was fine. So I looked up Wellbutrin side effects and some of the main ones were – anxiety/panic attacks, difficulty breathing and sleep disorders. Then I searched Chemotherapy with Wellbutrin and 5 drugs came up as potentials to enhance the side effects of Wellbutrin. Guess what one of the drugs were? Irinotecan – one of the main ones they are giving me right now. So with the side effects and my new found info, I stopped taking them. I wasn’t on full dose and Wellbutrin is a drug you can stop cold turkey. 

I met with my psychiatrist later that week and told him I was going to hold off on the daily anti-depressants for now. I don’t get down every day (or much at all to be honest) and if I do get a little anxious he gave me a prescription for Ativan. So we will see how this goes for now. If things change we can always try a different drug. Plus I really hate taking any drugs and I am fully loaded with this Chemo crap. 

Anyway, daily activities are starting to creep back in too. It feels good to care about something again. Still have many moments of “this f’n sucks” but doing some projects and doing a little work feels good. I am still nervous that things could change quickly though. 

My mom and sister are in Mexico this week for my cousin Kayla’s wedding. Would have liked to have gone but with Chemo schedule and a small fear of the Mexican health system it wasn’t to be. Creating memories with family and friends is very important to me now. Would have liked to create those memories with my extended family but I am happy my mom and sister are there. All the best to the happy couple and I can’t wait to see some pictures.

Off to bed now, meeting my Oncologist in the morning for the usual pre-chemo follow up!