Ice Ice #2 and a fat man in a little kimono

Well the 2nd round of ICE sucked about as much as the first round. No 2 ways about it chemo just isn't that fun or funny. I did manage to hold down my cookies until getting discharged from the hospital this time though.

Most of the nurses are super professional. As well as the folks who come around and take vitals and blood. 3 separate people,1 for each job. I had one guy named Daniel who was in charge of my vitals for 2 12 hour shifts. Spitting image of the guy that everyone picks on in Lean on Me but about 2x the size. One night he comes in all gowned up and given his size he has to turn my IV pole towards me to get to the blood pressure cuff. These IV poles are like Christmas trees if pointed the right way so he wakes me up. Nausea kicks in so I make like I am going to blow some chow and instead of finishing the vitals Daniel,  yelps, "I'm outta here" and does the shuffle out the door. I just hope there wasn't anyone on the other side of the door. That made me laugh at least. I wish there were more funny stories this time around.

Same schedule relatively as last time. Get discharged, wait a day then get this shot neulasta which pumps up the white blood cells. Amazing these suckers cost 10k a pop. Drive home, spend 2 days bargaining with the chemo gods if they took the nausea away they could have a limb. Then the pain of this neulasta shot kicks in for 3 days(feels for me like someone is trying to expand my bones from the inside using a pneumatic pump). Then after that all good, just tired and sleep a lot of the time.

Thank God my counts have responded both times after dipping low, about 9 days post chemo they are climbing back up. In fact my white blood cells now are normal and just 2 days ago they were 15% of normal. Platelets are still about 1/3 of normal hence the tiredness but so far so good.

Plan now is to head back in a week for ICE #3, wait 2-3 weeks and get a PET/CT scan. If I am in complete remission at that point they will go ahead and start sucking the stem cells out of me and getting me ready for transplant. If not then we will try another form of chemo. I know the current form is working as my lymph nodes have all decreased to where they can't be felt, just a matter of if there is any residual disease.

Thanks everyone for the great Hawaiian shirts, I think I am up to around 10 now so plenty enough to wear during transplant. In addition I have decided I will summon the powers of the Sumo for this next ICE and ordered out myself a SUMO robe. A lot of long faces at MD Anderson so hopefully folks seeing me wear this around will get a chuckle. Sure made me laugh looking at myself in it.

If you are the praying sort please have a prayer for the little man, he had a seizure this morning so is spending some time at the hospital hooked up to wires and such, and for my old man who had some health issues as well and is out of commission being able to help.

Please laugh loud and hard at the fat man in the sumo kimono. Maybe for my next entry I will strike some karate moves for the photos and you can call me Chest Rockwell.