11/18/24

Chemo selfie

First chemo infusion done! I went in last Monday (a week ago), and it takes around four hours for the process. And we learned a lot with this one.

On the positive side, nausea was never much of an issue which was a welcome experience. I know that can evolve over time from my last go at this, but feels like we kept that at bay. And I've been getting in walks every day, increasingly longer, even if a little foggy headed.

While the anti-nausea drugs worked, they also had some frustrating side effects (like hiccups...for hours and hours...I'd rather be nauseous!). So we are changing up a few things for next time to minimize the impact of those. And the chemo drugs definitely wiped me out, but working my way out of that day by day. There's some weird side effects too from the drugs, so I'm learning how to work around those.

We've been sitting with so many questions lately about everything, so it's nice to understand what at least this part of the journey might be like. And now I've got some data to work with, make some adjustments, do the next round, and repeat that cycle.

To come at this cancer holistically, we also met with Dr. T who is a functional medicine doctor. And we were impressed. She's an MD with fancy credentials from Duke and John Hopkins, but also, through decades in the ER, realized there's more to health than throwing drugs at stuff. So she's crafting a pretty rigorous nutrition protocol for us that supports my body in this process. The meddling scientist in me loved that she's thinking about the half life of each chemo drug, how to leave it alone to kill cancer cells, and then how to use nutrition to help my body clear it once it's done all the work it will do. This approach is going to be a $#@&load of work, and will matter so much for my healing.

That's most of the medical stuff.

Stacey, the kids and I all hit the mental wall around the same time on Thursday evening. The experience of the last month just came to a head. It all got aired out some. We cried, talked about it, got ourselves to bed, and woke up a little better. That's not the last time that will happen, and working to just stay honest with the experience and how it is landing in all of us in similar and different ways.

Thanks as always for the help, prayers, check-in's, gift cards, meals, etc. The outpouring of support has been felt and appreciated so deeply. We don't have sufficient words to express the gratitude.

I'm focused this week on feeding....literally feeding myself a lot of good clean food and fresh juices. And also working to feed my spirit with walks, yoga, meditation, connecting with friends, Slaid's band concert tonight, and playing some guitar. All of those things feel so rich to me right now.

I hope you get a chance in your week where you can really pause and fully take in a moment...your kid's ballgame, that conversation, that workout, that morning coffee, that 15 minutes of quiet, that time on the couch with your family, that hard-earned progress on something.

With much love and gratitude...

Matt