Treatment #4

Today was a long day. We were at OHSU for about 7 hours (about 9:30 to 4:30). We had to wait a little to see Dr. Chui (we actually saw his Intern first). Curt weighed 157.4 lbs and his blood pressure was low again (111 over 75). Curt mentioned that it seems like his left ear has been affecting his hearing more lately. This ear also has a very "crooked" canal from his surgery. Curt thought it started to get worse in Colorado. Dr. Chui said that a side effect of the Cisplatin medicine can be hearing loss. He asked me if I noticed Curt's hearing getting worse (I think it has a little). He wants Curt to have a hearing test in a couple weeks. Dr. Chui does not want to change this medicine though since it has done such a good job (he said it is better to be deaf than dead.) He said he showed the results of the MRI to a couple people (including Dr. Gross). They were impressed with the big dead tumor hanging in there. Curt was still getting tired after exercising (walking, cutting the grass, playing tennis, etc.). He wants Curt to have another MRI sometime after the next treatment that will be on September 8. He will continue with the chemotherapy until he doesn't see any improvements in the MRI.
After seeing the doctor, we had to wait a little to get started on the treatment. They were busy and put us in a room with no windows and a bed to start. We were there a couple hours and then Curt got to move to a recliner with a view of the river and Mt. Hood. His nurse was slow. She had a little trouble opening the Port completely, then we had to wait quite a while for the results of his blood tests. The other nurses had started his first bag of clear liquids while waiting for these results. She waited and started the liquids with the first medicine bag (they mix up this medicine in the Pharmacy right there - it doesn't have a very long shelf life and everyone is probably different). He has 2 big bags of the liquid he gets each time along with the 2 bags of the chemo-medicine. So we had to wait a little at the end for the last liquid bag to empty. We need to call the Corvallis Clinic in the morning about his followup shot tomorrow afternoon.
On the way home we stopped in Albany for supper and got gas and some other things at Costco. So we were gone from about 8 in the morning until 8 tonight.
By the way, we had a great time in Arrowhead, Colorado (west of Vail). There were 22 of us in a big beautiful house next to a couple tennis courts and pond with goldfish (the kids did some catch and release there). We all did different things but all went to a rodeo on the last night.
Last Friday we celebrated our 44th wedding anniversary.