My wife and I hosted our families for Thanksgiving again this year. It’s the fourth year we’ve done so, and while it’s a lot of people (it was 32 this year), and therefore a lot of preparation, we really look forward to it and love doing it.

As Thanksgiving approached, several family members asked us if we were sure we wanted to host this year, what with me going through chemo. Since we knew it was an “off” week for me, we batted aside any assumptions that we’d need to take a break this year and moved forward.

We did enlist additional help moving our furniture around and with some of the cooking (thanks, everyone!), and I took more breaks and rested when I needed to, but it was important to us to be able to host this year, perhaps more so than in the past. It would have felt like we were letting my treatment take something important away if we hadn’t done it.

We’ve seen most of the people who came over the last few months, but there were a few people we hadn’t seen in a while. I heard a lot of exclamations of how wonderful I look. I’m not recommending cancer and chemo to anyone, mind, but it’s good for the ego to hear how great you look all the time.

The interesting thing about the drugs that I’m taking is that they haven’t affected me physically very much. My taste buds and appetite haven’t been hugely affected, so my weight is relatively stable; I haven’t lost my hair; and in general when you look at me, you wouldn’t know that I’m going through chemo.

The one outward physical change, which is very easy for someone to overlook, is some discoloration in my hands. They’ve looked like this for the past few weeks:

It’s a pigmentation change that my oncologist says is totally normal and will fade after my chemo is over. It’s happening on my toes, too.

So, with me otherwise looking normal, and people thinking that chemo = big changes in how you look (weigh loss, hair loss, sallow coloring, etc.), I’m not surprised at people’s reaction of “wow, you look so great”. And, I don’t really mind it, either. I know that it’s basically an expression of “I care about you and was worried, and I’m glad to see that you’re doing well.”

It’s just funny hearing it over a dozen times in the same night.

Here’s the thing… I was really hoping that my treatment today was going to get postponed. When I came in two weeks ago for  treatment #5, my platelets were low, and trending downward. My oncologist told me that if they dropped below 100,000, I’d need to postpone my treatment. I was kind of hoping that’d happen. While it would have meant the overall timeline stretching out, I was kind of looking forward to a little bit of a break, and having another week or two of feeling “better”, especially with Thanksgiving coming up.

Plus, I cut my finger at work yesterday (nothing serious… just a scratch) and it definitely took longer to stop bleeding than usual, so here I was thinking, “excellent… looks like my platelets are still low” (Believe me, I realize how strange it was for that to be what I was hoping for).

However, my platelets didn’t continue to drop. In fact, they were at 137,000 today (normal is 150,000), up from 105,000 two weeks ago. Damn you fragmentation of precursor megakaryocytes! (Look it up… I had to). So, my treatment’s on, and things continue as usual, where “usual” is defined as “getting drugs injected into you for forty-six hours”.

Overall things were pretty standard today. The waiting room wasn’t too busy, and I was taken pretty much on time. I had to have a couple of vials of blood drawn for the research study that I agreed to participate in, but they drew them through my port, so it really wasn’t much of a hardship. We also saw my cancer friends, and finally learned their names (Carol and Ann), and chatted briefly.

I didn’t have an appointment with my oncologist today, just the infusions, but she stopped by to check in, and to break up with me.

She let me down easy. “It’s not you, it’s me,” she said. “I think we just want different things.”

Seriously, though, she’s leaving the hospital in December and taking a job that’s more cancer-research focused. So, I’ll be switching to a new oncologist. I’m a little bummed, since I like her very much and have a comfortable relationship/rapport with her, but I do feel like things are pretty much rolling along at this point, so I’m not too upset. She also mentioned that she’d hand picked the oncologist that I was being handed off to, and that she thought that we’d get along very well. My new oncologist stopped by to introduce herself, which was nice, too. My current oncologist is here for another month, so I’ll have one more appointment with her before the switch.

So, even though I’d hoped for a break, I’m at the halfway point now. Only six more to go.

I had my fifth chemo treatment last Wednesday, Halloween, and overall things went well, if you don’t include the drive home.

We got to the hospital at 10am, and met first with my oncologist (I only see her every four weeks). It wasn’t a long meeting – she asked me a few questions and we talked about the side effects after my third treatment. Given that things hadn’t repeated during my fourth treatment, she wasn’t overly concerned, and did confirm/repeat the fact that oxalyplatin can be pretty nasty when it comes to muscle pain and discomfort.

We also reviewed my blood count trends. Apparently my red blood cell count is trending a little low – I’m slightly anemic – but not low enough that it’s troubling. My white blood cell count is doing great. My platelets, however, are low. A normal platelet count is around 150,000. On Wednesday, mine was 105,000. My oncologist informed me that if it drops below 95,000, then they’ll probably delay treatment for a week or two to give my body some time to bounce back. So, we’ll see what happens when I go in next week.

After I saw the oncologist, I went back to the treatment area to get my infusions. As I suspected, Halloween costumes were in short supply. I saw one set of ears on someone, but otherwise there wasn’t a lot of festivity in the cancer treatment center… weird.

The nurse I usually see had the day off, so one of the other nurses took care of my infusions. She was nice, but a little late getting started, which meant that we were stuck there a bit later, which meant we hit more traffic going home. Given that we’d asked for an earlier appointment so that we could get home in time for trick or treaters, this was annoying. However, we did get home in time, so no harm done in the long term.

I was a lot more tired during this treatment for some reason, and even napped for about half an hour towards the end.

While I was there, I had a follow-up visit from the genetic counselor that I met with during my third treatment. She didn’t have any new and exciting information, but was able to confirm that after reviewing my case with her colleagues, there wasn’t anything jumping off the page in terms of genetic syndromes that cause colon cancer. So, there’s no genetic explanation for my cancer, but that doesn’t really worry me. I wasn’t expecting to get an answer; I was more concerned about whether or not I needed to do anything extra in the future in terms of screenings or prevention. The short answer: no, I don’t – just the regular stuff that men should do as they get older (prostate exams, colonoscopies, etc.).

One interesting thing that did come up is that there’s a study that’s been happening since 1993 in Boston titled “Genetics and Other Causes of Cancer”. Unlike other research studies, most of the major hospitals in Boston are sharing data for the study. After meeting with the study coordinator, I signed the paperwork to add my data and information to the study. It doesn’t involve a whole lot from me – basically a couple of vials of blood and agreeing to let the study access my medical records related to my surgery and chemotherapy. I’ll add this to the “hopefully something good can come out of this” list… maybe my data provides some sort of breakthrough.

My reaction to this round has been in line with my last round, and thankfully not as bad as round #3. I was tired and uncomfortable throughout the weekend, but nothing too severe. It’s amazing how much like clockwork everything runs, though. Friday around 3 or 4pm I just lose steam altogether, and then I know that Saturday and Sunday are going to feel awful. By Monday morning, though, I wake up, and while I don’t feel great, I feel well enough to go into work, when just 24 hours earlier there’s no way I could have done so. It’s strange to me that it’s so similar time after time.

Almost halfway there.