It’s been a nerve wracking week here at Chez O’Shea. This week marked nine months since the end of Chuck’s chemo treatments, and six months since his last PET scan. Monday they did a new PET scan and today we got the results. It was all good news. Mister Fatty Necrosis, of whom I [...]
Well, it’s 2010 and we have started it off with a bang – at least as regards our running & training. So far this year (the last five days) we’ve run 18 miles. What are we chasing, you ask? The Paris marathon in April, I respond. Oh, and another race is also looming: the [...]
It’s been a while since the last official Chuck-date, but it’s been for all good reasons. He’s been recovering from chemotherapy (and let me tell you, chemo kicks some serious ass so it requires a lot of recovery) and growing hair and starting to run again and regaining his taste in food and wine. [...]
Chuck had a PET scan this past Monday, his first since the one that declared him in remission from his follicular lymphoma last April. The test itself was uneventful: he had to eat a weird diet the night before to get his blood sugars low, then got a dose of Ativan and went sleepy-tie-tie [...]
Today marked Chuck’s fifth chemo treatment. It was also the day we got the results of the PET scan he had last week to measure the effectiveness of the chemo on his lymphoma. It wasn’t the slam dunk we had hoped for, but it wasn’t all bad either. His lymph nodes are all clear [...]
Literally: $23,000 per treatment on average before insurance. Okay, I’m exaggerating. $17,000 of that is for the immunotherapy drug, Rituximab (which was denied by our insurance as not necessary at first; thank you to the City of Hope for fighting that fight for us!). But still. Between medical bills and the sucky economy we [...]
Chuck had his fourth chemo treatment today. Phew! It’s hard to believe that nine weeks ago we had just started this journey. It seems like years have passed since then. He’s held up really well, and this time was no different. His blood count was good overall, but his hemoglobin levels were a bit [...]
This week marked Chuck’s third chemo treatment which means he is officially over the hump – halfway done! The dosage was exactly the same as before but as his tolerance for the Rituxan (immunotherapy drug) is so good, they can push that a lot faster so he finished a good hour earlier than last [...]
taken by Chuck during his second chemo treatment
The hair just kept coming out, so last night Chuck did the deed and shaved what was left off. On the way, he tried out a mohawk: He had his second chemo treatment today, which means he’s one third of the way through. So far, so good. No nausea, and feeling pretty good. [...]