Treatment Days

Ed had another treatment on Monday, January 9th.  When I got home from work, he was resting in bed.  He was feeling a bit queasy and achy.  The same was true after his last treatment as well.  The good news is that the chemo is keeping the tumors at bay.  Unfortunately, though, Ed is experiencing more side effects than he did in the first two years.

So as Dan and I prepared dinner for ourselves and set some aside for Ed to have later in the evening, I realized my updates on this blog tend to stay on the positive side and only share the good.  But for those of you who come here looking for updates on how Ed is doing versus a sugar-coated story, I have been doing you a disservice.

Don't get me wrong, Ed is still battling this nasty disease and the chemo is keeping the tumors at bay.  But the Avastin has resulted in more side effects than Ed experienced earlier.  As you know, he was losing his hair last fall and ended up shaving his head in September.  He has since lost his eyebrows and eyelashes although this is less noticeable hidden behind his glasses.

The Avastin has also resulted in high blood pressure and so now Ed is taking blood pressure medicine and recently had to up the dosage.  He frequently has muscle aches and his energy is low.  Of course, I attribute this to him being older and tell him he needs to be more active and exercise/move more often (which falls on deaf ears).  In general, though, treatment days seem to take more out of Ed than they ever did previously.  He feels more queasy and tired, has an obnoxious runny nose for hours, and comes home to rest afterwards.

The good news is that this only typically lasts a day and overall, the good days still greatly outnumber the bad days which we are thankful for.