Me and My Pump

Well time for an update......
...but WARNING! Some pictures may be offensive (smile).

I did have my first chemotherapy treatment last Tuesday, Nov 20. The "infusion" lasted 3 hours or so. It consisted of sitting in a recliner chair while a nurse first inserted an IV line into the port in my shoulder, drew a blood sample, and then proceeded to hook me up to 2 IV chemo drips. That lasted several hours.


At the end I was hooked up to a portable pump that runs into the IV port and which I must take with me and keep with me for the next 46 hours. The pump slowly dispenses an additional drug directly into my blood stream. Once the 46 hours is over and the pump is finished I return to the doctor's office to have it removed. The process is over (except for enduring the consequences of the drugs) until the next session which is 2 weeks off. I have to go through this routine 12 times...well, 11 more now. I will be finished, Lord willing, some time in the spring around my birthday.

The process is not difficult. Pam accompanied me through the whole 3 hour infusion and was able to come home to help me through the first day. She has been so wonderful and precious through this whole experience to date. I did have some symptoms immediately. My throat and mouth became very sensitive to cold. We stopped on the way home for an "at-a-boy" reward, a chocolate milkshake. But trying to drink it was difficult. Every time I took a sip I felt like I had an ice cube stuck in my throat. I couldn't finish it, try and desire as I might.

The next couple of days were hard. It was difficult to have to carry around that pump all the time, to bed, to the shower, to the dinner table, etc. Also after a while I began to feel "eerily" for a lack of a better word. The pump makes a quiet sound each time it dispenses, and after a while it really grew hard to hear that sound and with it the realization that it was putting poisonous chemicals directly into my blood stream. We traveled to Portland on Thanksgiving morning to have the pump removed. Getting it off was quite a relief. However, that day and for the next several days and through this past weekend I have felt pretty lousy, nauseated, no energy, consistently loose bowel. Each day seems to be better though, and today, November 27, I am feeling pretty good. Speaking to the nurses they have told me that what I am experiencing is pretty normal, that I should expect to feel better and better each day as I approach the next session. With the next session I will repeat the process, get knocked down again, and start the recovery all over again.

Well, that's all for now. Thank you again to all who so consistently express their love and support and affirm their prayers on behalf of myself, Pam and Sara. This trial is from the Lord's hand and for all three of us. Thanks to all, and God bless.

Walt

And for the appropriate Scripture; speaking to the Believers in Rome, Paul writes...

For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself; for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord's.

-Romans 14:7-8

And again, Jesus tells His disciples...

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand.

- John 10:27-28