DAY 90: New port and a clean scan...

Well I am back in the hospital for what will likely be another 5 nights for my 5th round of chemo (an A-block). Yesterday moning, we had another port put in my chest. As a reminder, a port is a small implantable device with two chambers covered by a self-sealing silicone lid. Attached to the port is a ~25cm catheter which is threaded over my collar bone, down my superior vena cava, and then down to the upper chamber of my heart. Any infusions I get are virtually immediately circulated throughout my entire bloodstream/body.

I had this same type of port on my right side, but it was removed last week as a result of my infection. Most often, the infection will lodge in any foreign body and the antibiotics cannot effectively treat it. So they have to take it out, without knowing if the infection is even located there. Mine came out, and was clean... so it didn't need to come out. Hindsight...20/20...yeah.

So when I was going back for my port surgery, they had to give me another IV line in my arm. It took them 4 tries to get the IV catheter inserted successfully. Ouch. I don't want pity, but I've had 9 IV lines in my arms in the past week. They are eaten up. Lots of bruising and pock marks. Having the port back sure makes my arms happy!

Two doors down from our room there are two to three armed guards sitting outside the door. THey have guns. We kept asking the nurses what the story was, and they would not leak a word. I even asked, "Are the guards there to protect that person, or protect us from that person?" This morning, we learned it's the latter. It's a prisoner getting chemo. Cool, huh? Maybe I can make a new friend.

And the best news of all: my PET/CT came back squeaky clean. I am still in complete remission and there is no evidence of the disease in my body. Unfortunately, we still have to do 8 rounds, as all of the clinical data (and high response rates) were based on 8 rounds of R-hyperCVAD-M/A treatment. Ok. So after this round, I will hopefully be 5/8 of the way through treatment. We just hope there are no more infections out there awaiting us... that was something we could certainly do without.

This round is the one with the steroids... so that bodes well for blog updates! Thanks for reading.

PS- a long-time high-school friend of mine, John Bearden, lost his mother this week in Nashville to cancer. Please keep them in throughts for those of you who think and prayers for those of you who pray. Thank you...