Game reset

I unexpectedly spent yesterday afternoon in the hospital after a little pink skin and itchy feeling on my chest turned nasty and painful and red. My port, loyal friend through more chemotherapy infusions and blood draws than I care to remember, had become infected and needed to go. I didn't talk with the medical folks much about what went wrong -- they seemed to think that 18 months was about the lifespan of the kind of port I had -- but it may have been that I was remiss about having the port accessed and flushed. So, fellow port-wearers (port-isheads?), take care of your port and watch out for soreness and redness.

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Otherwise, things are still mostly OK. I finish my third cycle of Temodar on Monday; we'll then take a week off, do a scan, and hopefully launch a fourth cycle of the drug. If a scan after the fourth cycle looks good, I'll decide whether to continue the Temodar or, more likely, try the deforolimus trial. If the scan is bad, we'll choose some other form of chemotherapy -- if that comes to pass, I'll probably want to shop around for a clinical trial, though I don't have anything specific clearly in mind.

The Temodar is clearly fatiguing me, but in subtle ways. Unlike all the other chemotherapy I have had, it's hard to point to specific things and blame them on the drug. This is a good thing, obviously, but it leads me to sometimes not give myself the slack that being on chemo requires. I get frustrated at myself for not accomplishing more, when really I need rest to accomplish the most important goal -- getting through the treatment and getting better.