(Hopefully this post will be easier to read. I didn't just discover paragraphs, I just discovered how to keep them in my post when blogging. I promise, I really did put in paragraphs with new topics on my other posts, I just posted in the wrong place so they disappeared when I published.)

It was a big day today. We started out in the lab to get the port accessed and some blood drawn. Then we met with my doctor for the first time. Of course I saw numerous doctors while in the hospital but they were only assigned to me while I was an inpatient. My doctor seems really nice and I will look forward to getting to know her pretty well as we will be seeing each other often. 

Some more test results had returned so we got a little bit more news about my cancer. Unfortunately it isn’t very good news. It turns out my cancer has a BRAF mutation. This is apparently the cause for the strange way in which it is infusing through my lungs. But this mutation makes it so that the chemo drugs are not as affective and it cuts life expectancy in half. She said that the average stage IVb colon cancer patient lives about 2 years so one with this mutation has an average life expectancy of 1 year. One year is longer than I was expecting to have anyway, so I guess that part isn’t too bad. But we all know I am not one to do things the average way so who knows how I will decide to skew that average. 

Another little tidbit I learned is that little ‘b’ after the IV. If you have stage IVa cancer that means it has only spread to one other place and is therefore considered curable. If it has spread to more than one other place then it becomes stage IVb and no longer curable. We already knew that this was not curable so that is no big news, I just didn’t know there were different stage IV varieties so I found that interesting.

In December they will do another scan to see how the chemo therapy is affecting the cancer. The doctor has hope that we will be able to get rid of enough of it in my lungs that I will eventually get off the oxygen. That would be wonderful as life will be much more normal and enjoyable without that hinderance. I was also able to see the PET scan of my body. That was fascinating. My lungs really are a mess! We also confirmed that the plan is to do 12 treatments. That means six months of chemo every two weeks unless changes need to be made prior to that.

After meeting with the doctor we went to the infusion clinic where I began my 2nd treatment. We had a nice little private room with a television and access to snacks and everything just like when you stay at the hospital. It took 3.5 hours to get my first 3 drugs and then they hooked me up to a pump that has my fourth drug to bring home with me since it takes 48 hours to infuse. I will end Saturday at 8:30 pm. So far I am handling the side affects well again. I did get terribly hot and was sweating, which I am sure I did last time, too, but since I was terribly hot the whole time I was in the hospital (we assumed due to my respiratory stuff going on) I probably didn’t notice any difference. But I figure I can live with that side affect and actually next time they are even going to give me a drug to counter act that one. Not that that is so bad it needs counteracting, but that is just one symptom in a class of symptoms so to make sure I don’t experience some of the other more unpleasant ones (relating to the bowels, in case you wanted that little detail) they will go ahead and give me the drug.

While I sat and watched HGTV, Kevin got to run around the hospital delivering paperwork. This is where the rest of our bad news for the day came. We applied for pharmacy assistance to help pay for the chemo drugs and were denied. Kevin makes $4,000/year too much. I guess that would be all fine and dandy if it was only going to cost $4,000. So, that was a bit of a blow but I am confident this will all work out. So many people have already been so generous and willing to help us. I am going to continue to have faith that God will carry us through all aspects of this experience.

I guess that is it. So far, so good with round #2!