Mathew's Journal, Making the Best Decisions Based on Precedent

From Mathew’s Journal

3-28-2014

Woke up this morning definitely feeling the effects of the chemo.

I was awoken by mother cleaning and instantly aware of the fact that the room was spinning and my stomach was doing gymnastics.

After the morning routine in the restroom and taking down handfuls of Rx, my grandmother brought me a breakfast of toast and bacon. I told them I didn’t think I could handle the eggs. I’m second guessing the bacon, although surprisingly delicious as well.

Now I am belching incessantly and wondering if I am going to vomit. Eventually, I tend to have a large belch that alleviates most of the pressure making nausea or diarrhea or constipation more bearable.

Had to go to Moffitt to get some shot or another. It was in the same section of the hospital that I had gotten chemo yesterday. Apparently, there had to be a 24-hour gap between chemo and the shot so I had to wait another hour.

I was lucky enough to be put in a room with a bed and used this apparently to take a nap as I have been exhausted and found myself nodding off whenever I was in a seat.

The shot didn’t hurt and we were quickly on the way back. I slept most of the way without realizing I was asleep.

Caregiver tip: My sister Kathleen is not a cook, so my Mom bought a supply of to go containers and when my sister would go over their house to eat dinner, my Mom would send a meal back for Mathew. Or as on this day, she brought him some breakfast. This way, we weren’t shuttling my Mom’s plates back and forth and it kept Mathew’s food from being handled or exposed.

The Neulasta shots are to boost the patient’s white count, sort of like setting the white blood cell factory on overtime in order to prevent infections, due to low white counts.

I see the commercials on T.V. The first one I saw was a woman, who according to the commercial, received her shot because some cancer patients get chemo that is so strong, their immune systems are compromised. In this commercial, this woman, the ‘cancer patient’ gets her shot so she can be home after chemo. So she goes into the family backyard and sits at a table with a group of people and proceeds to eat corn on the cob and lobster, I believe, from a communal table of food.

A few things strike me about these commercials. As Mathew was instructed, when his white count was low and he was at risk of infection (which eventually became a constant), he wasn’t to eat ‘communal food’, which are things like a basket of tortilla chips at a restaurant, from a box of pizza after other people have had their hands in it, a bowl of nuts, or chips….you get the idea. And shellfish was on the list of do not eat.

But, it’s just a commercial. 

So, in that respect, the commercial is funny to me. The other thing is the commercial gives a disclaimer, as is normal for medications, but listen carefully, do not use if you are allergic to Neulasta or Neupogen….and how would someone know they are allergic I wonder.  One of the potential side effects mentioned is a ruptured spleen. 

This is one of those things that normally does much more good than otherwise. One of those things, when the starter pistol goes off with a cancer diagnosis such as Mathew received and everyone, starts running for the patient's life, decisions are made to the best of everyone’s ability using the best information they have available to them and that’s it. There are no do-overs or let’s think about this for a few weeks, no taking it slow or plan for a future event when everything will be addressed. No. Sometimes every decision, every turn can be a life or death decision. You get one go at it and you trust your team or not.

Mathew trusted his team completely and so did I. I still do, but Mathew hoped that by me sharing his journey that we can help someone get a jump on part of their treatment, or give them another idea or way to deal with some aspect of it. Anything to make someone’s run for their life easier, or more successful.