5-FU

Still quiet in our house today. My Johnny had a rough night and without going into unnecessary details, let me just say it was just like you'd think it would be for a guy on chemotherapy.

I made sure that his meds were ready every 4 hours (actually closer to 3 1/2 hours most of the time, but don't tell anyone). Finally at about 4:00 this morning he asked for Vicodin to go along with the Compazine and Ativan. The area around the port was aching, so we went with the maximum dose there, too. After about 40 minutes I could hear him snoring and I was relieved that he had actually fallen asleep.

I called Ginger at 6:30 a.m. to ask if she would come over and stay with him while I went to work. I didn't want him to be alone, and I didn't want the kids to bear the responsibility of taking care of their dad with all of this. Ginger, of course, came right over. I know it is so hard on her to go through this (it isn't easy on anyone). Johnny is her baby after all. I couldn't stand the thought of not being able to take care of one of my boys, no matter how old. So, Ginger will always be my first "Go To" for the care-taking of Johnny. He is most comfortable with her, anyway, so it all works out.

Dr. Ansari's office called in a different medicine to try (Zofran) so I picked that up on my way home to unhook his pump. Right when I got home I took the pump off of him so that he could finally get comfortable. (And no, I never said "Whoops!" ) I flushed the lines and thought, "Oh, crap. This is flushing the rest of the medicine into him pretty quickly." A bigger bolus than just the 2.5 cc's per hour that had been infusing over the last 46 hours.

He felt pretty good for a while, and got up to take a bath and change jammies. Then the last "line flushing" bolus hit. Dang, back to the bucket.

I'm hoping that since the pump is now off, his night will be much more restful. He is going to get the mother load of nausea meds: Zofran, Compazine, Ativan and even the Vicodin thrown in for good measure. He just told me that he is already feeling a little better, and then turned around and went right back to bed.

I think the weakness has really surprised him, as it has me. This 5-FU stuff (the medicine on the pump) is evil and I think is the reason he got so sick. I hope this means that we caught the liver and colon off guard and the chemo is wreaking havoc right now. I like the name 5-FU, though. It is what I thought of all last night: FU cancer, FU.