The Struggle Has Ended

Greg Hewlett passed away on January 17th after nearly eight years of battling colon cancer. While we grieve his loss, we are comforted to know that he is with his Lord.

If you would like to leave your thoughts on Greg, please see this thread.

If you would like to make a charitable donation in Greg's honor, please see this thread.

Sunday, November 14, 2004

Round two

Wow, that was quick. We enjoyed being home this week, which went by too quickly. Wednesday was Christine's birthday and we celebrated with my sisters' families and my parents over at Mom & Dad's house.

Christine's migraines have been extrordinarily bad this week, so we felt she should take a break this round so mom and I drove down tonight for round two. Christine should be ok without me, for she has Dolce with her.

Chemo begins tomorrow morning. As before, it is administered over 48 hours. Only the first 4-6 hours will be in the hospital, so no overnight stay this time. Then we'll drive home Wednesday, Lord willing.

I feel like I live in Houston and that I just took a short vacation to go up to Dallas. I cannot stay away from this town! Everytime my mind begins to clear, I once again find myself confronted by Marvin Zindler and Gallery Furniture ads.


Wednesday, November 3, 2004

Finishing up chemo

There are four drugs in the chemo combination they are giving me: avastin, oxalyplatin, leucovorin, and 5-fu. They give them sequentially over about five hours. Then they send me home with a chemo pump fanny pack to adminsiter the 5-fu over 48 hours.

To avoid allergic reaction, they gave me a combination of four drugs before the chemo. They knocked me out cold. Christine stayed up most of that night to keep a close eye out for any reaction. The good news is that there was no reaction at all, not even at the level I had from my allergy to cisplatin, a drug I took years ago that is related to oxalyplatin. This means I'll be good to go for more of this stuff.

They observed me as an inpatient for the first day of the chemo. Last evening, I was discharged. I've slept most of the day. The chemo is draining, but I'm not feeling too sick. Tonight I'll unhook the pump when the infusion is complete - Christine and I took a class to get "certified" for removing it ourselves. Otherwise, we would have had to go to the E.R. because the infusion ends tonight after the infusion department closes.

Next round is scheduled for Nov 15. We should be headed back to Dallas soon to enjoy the time until then at home.

Tuesday, November 2, 2004

No allergic reaction

I'm having computer problems, but wanted to let you know that there were no allergic reactions to the chemo! More to come...

Monday, November 1, 2004

Checking in to the hospital

Cancer cells begin dying today. I am headed over to the hospital to check in for chemo. They will probably be giving it to me in a couple of hours. I will be there until mid-day tomorrow. They will be keeping a close on me because based on my history, I havce a high chance of having a bad allergic reaction to one of the drugs. The chemo specialist told us that I will be getting at least three powerful premeds to avoid reaction. They are overdoing it. Sounds good to me - anything worth doing is worth overdoing. I'm not too concerned about the reaction itself, I just don't want them to discontinue giving me this chemo due to any problems. The bottom line is that I need it.

Lord, use this stuff to do shock and awe on that tumor.