Willie's cancer

​I’ll keep this short.  It was a rough last two weeks with round 6. Especially at Christmas-time with lots of nausea, vomiting, dizzy, dehydrated.   Willie had made up his mind to do round 7 today as scheduled.  I was skeptical and at peace with whatever he decided today, go or no.  Willie got blood test yesterday prior to today’s chemo.  We showed up at 8:30 to meet with new doctor Naquin (pronounced Knock-on). Dr. Voshtina, the oncologist the whole time, had her baby boy this morning.  Yay!   Decision made for us   He was too neutropenic and dehydrated to do this round  it would be unsafe.  Willie then said, “no more, if I can’t do it today, I’m done!”.  He is given fluids only today which is good!  That should help. We meet with Dr. Naquin again on 1/8   We also meet with Dr. Loewen (the surgeon) that day too.  I successfully got his swallow test and meeting with Speech Therapist (about his hoarse voice) from 1/7 t...

​Today on December 21st Willie is 2 months post surgery.  It is also the first day of winter and the shortest day and longest night of the year in the Western Hemisphere.  Feeding tube removed on December 5th and so he’s on his own to eat now.  When the j-tube was in he would eat 300-700 calories and drink some fluids on top of the 1500-2000 calories through the tube.  Now the responsibility of eating while trying to figure out his new anatomy is totally up to him and it’s a full on battle.  He is trying but it’s still a challenge and as a result he’s losing weight again. He can only eat very small portions or he gets sick and has to lay down.  He has to be careful about what he eats and how much he eats.  But if he doesn’t eat much he has low energy and doesn’t feel well.  It will just take time to adjust.  Additionally, he’s on round 6 of chemo that started last Thursday, so there is an additional layer of discomfort in that he has lost his...

​Here we are, one week away from Christmas, December 18, 2025, around #6 of chemo.  Definitely not wanting to do this one.  Sadly the last 2 weeks have been very hard, frustrating, painful, nauseating, and lethargic.  It’s hard.  But we can do hard things.  So here we are.  Grabbed some burritos from the cafe and I opened up my work laptop to spend 4 hours in infusion which began around 9:30 am  (supposed to be 8:30 am but doctors orders didn’t get in and they have cancer board on a Thursday mornings so had to wait).   Willie is unfortunately losing his hair again today.  It’s been growing for a few months now but the chemo will cause him to lose it all again.  Disappointing, but we’ve sort of come to terms with the fact he needs to complete round 6, 7, and 8 to be certain that any loose cancer cells are gone.  We met with oncologist, Dr Voshtina yesterday and she was willing to postpone/delay this round until after Christmas or low...

​Chemo happened on Tuesday.   Wednesday Willie started having a lot of discharge and pain around the j-tube.  Sadly, it didn’t subside at all and he had level 10 pain so we sent a message with photos to Dr Loewen through MyChart Wednesday night.  He’s truly been suffering for 3 days and basically can’t move, just lay down.   These photos give a good idea of what it looked like Wednesday.  The connection was a bit pulled away from the skin and the tube would fill with what looked like bile or stomach acid.  Yesterday after his shot of Zarxio he met with Dr Loewen to take a look at it.  He was sent back home to wait until the regular scheduled meeting on 12/11 for follow up.   Today, he went in for shot #3 of Zarxio and came home.  But his serious pain and suffering continued.  Dr Loewen called around  3:30 and asked if he could come over to his office.  Turns out he decided the feeding tube needed to come out.  That was an ...

Today marked a milestone we've both been dreading for weeks now, the final four rounds of chemo began!  Willie has surely been thinking he needs to find a way out of it.  It's a trip to think why?  Why? Why does he have to if the first 4 rounds shrunk the tumor away and the surgery got rid of anything that would even possibly be able to grow back again and all the margins were clear.  Why does he have to do 4 MORE ROUNDS OF CHEMO for Heaven's Sake?  WHY?  Maybe you've been asking yourself the same question.  I'm not sure he or I are satisfied that we have the answer to it.  Also, he has already decided that he's only doing 3 of them.  LOL  So, here's a plethora of reasons he has to do it  (4 good ones to choose from because 4 more rounds):    1) It's the required amount for this type of cancer and stage.  They base outcomes on 4 rounds prior to surgery and 4 more starting 6 weeks after surgery. 2)  More aggressiv...