Thursday, February 4, 2016

The Beginning of Treatment

Sunday evening we left for Lincoln to stay the night at the condo before our appointment Monday with Dr. Julie Vose. Monday morning we went to the fertility clinic in Omaha before our appointment with Dr. Vose to give a sample of Chase’s sperm to freeze in a sperm bank. We had to wait about 4 hours to get the results of his fertility and that would decide whether or not they would be able to save them for later in case the chemo makes him infertile. While we waited for the results we got some lunch and headed to the oncologist for her results of the biopsy and opinion on treatment.
They called us back and took Chase’s vitals. This office was so much busier than the first oncologist we met with in Kearney. We waited an hour or more to go back and meet with her and there were about 30 patients in the waiting room. We got to our room and a nurse came in and asked Chase a lot of basic questions about his symptoms. Dr. Vose came in about 15 minutes later to give us the results of the retested biopsy.  She got the exact same results Mayo Clinic found. Stage 4 B Classical Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She had the same opinion on treatment as well (ABVD) although she suggested chase only do 6 rounds every 2 weeks instead of 8 rounds. It was very nice to have consistency and confirmation on what the diagnosis was and the type of treatment we should do. The appointment with her was very short and to the point. We feel honored to get to doctor with her. She is a very experienced oncologist in the field of lymphoma. Her nurse Brad scheduled us to get his port placed Wednesday morning at 9 am and to start chemo later that afternoon at 2:00.
While we were in our appointment I had to step out and take a call from the fertility clinic and as if hearing your husband has cancer isn’t enough, we found out the cancer has also made him infertile. This may not be permanent and there is only a 10% chance that this chemo treatment will affect his fertility. But we are praying we will make lots of baby Eilers!
We had an off day on Tuesday and relaxed and went shopping all day. We had a nice relaxing day and went out to eat with some of Chase’s good friends.
On Wednesday we got up at 4:30 am and headed for Omaha to check in for his port placement procedure. Everything went smoothly and he felt wide-awake and good right after the procedure. We went to eat at Panera after the surgery then back to the hospital to start the first round.
Finally the moment we have been waiting for… the start of getting rid of this cancer.  They started out by giving him some anti nausea medication. Then they administered a bleomyosin test (which is the “B” portion of the ABVD). This drug is difficult on the patient’s lungs so they really have to be careful to see how they react. He reacted just fine so they continued on his treatment. They finished administering the entire treatment and this took about 2.5 more hours. The process in whole was about 4 hours.
He was a little tingly after the treatment but he still has not had too many side effects. His energy level is so high and he was up at 7:00 am this morning wide-awake. He has had crazy hiccups and slight indigestion. We called the doctor on call and turns out it is pretty common and he told him to take Prilosec and a couple of other post chemo medications they called in for him.
We are doing great and Chase is recovering great! Please continue the prayers we are already seeing results! The Lymph nodes have gone down in size and his breathing and itching are doing better already! Thank you Jesus!!! Thank you for all your support and prayers. We appreciate all you have done for us.


-Chase and Danielle

No comments:

Post a Comment