Friday's appointments

We left the house at 7:30am yesterday and returned home just before 5pm. As you can imagine, it was a pretty busy day. Below are some quick snapshots of the day:

Chemo Teaching:

• I am currently classified as "Chemo Naive" which means, I have never experienced it. Although I would have preferred to keep it this way, after Monday my description will change.
• My first chemo appointment is Monday morning at 10:45am.
• We were provided with a Cost estimation Summary which blew me away. Of course, i have no reference point for something like this and I will break it down below so you can see the cost of the drugs.

These are the cost for one Cycle of Chemo (5 days worth unless noted differently)

• Initial Infusion $3,110.00
• IV Secuential $3,030.00
• Therapeutic Injection $765.00
• Bleomycin $2,268.00
• Cisplatin $2,350.00
• Etoposide $930.00
• Dexamenthasone $50.00
• Kytril $1,250.00
• Magnesium $120.00
• Neulasta (1 shot) $7,031.00
• Potassium $200.00
• Grand Total $21,104.00

That is the Medicine cost of one Cycle of Chemo and I'll need 4 cycles. Insurance covers most of this and I am responsible for 10% of the total.

After the Chemo Teaching, I went for a Hearing test as one of the drugs above has the potential to affect the hearing and they needed a baseline test to understand where I was today. I have extremely sensitive hearing in my left ear and good hearing in my right ear. Even if I were to lose a small percentage of hearing, it would place me into a normal rating.

After the hearing, we went for a pulmonary function test. I sat in a little booth and had to breath into something that looked like a snorkel mouthpiece. She probably did 8 or 9 test on my breathing as they need a baseline for this because the Bleomycin has been know to cause breathing problems. The tester asked if I had every had problems breathing as she said I was on the lower side of the normal rating and that I might have small lungs. She did not seem concerned, she just wanted to know if it affects anything I do and I said No.

Finally, after everything else, I went in for the MRI. I believe it took about 45 minutes total and I was in there for a while before they gave me a break. When I did exit the machine, they gave me a shot of Contrast and put me right back in there for a couple more scans. I hope the Dr. will have the results of the MRI's as early as my appointment time on Monday.

This thing in my chest started to bother me yesterday as it's pretty tight. Lifting my arm above my head is not possible as it causes some pain and discomfort. Jen and I were leaving the hospital yesterday and I was feeling really worked as the past couple of weeks have been a crash course in Cancer and all it brings. Although I do not have a problem getting poked for blood or a shot, I must have had it done 10 times in the past week and it's getting old.

Sam