Day 169, Year 11: Friday at Mass General
Date: Friday, April 8, 2016
Weather: Partly Cloudy and Windy, High Temp 52 degrees F
Location: At Home in Evergreen Preserve, Lowell, MA
Today was drug trial treatment #2 for Mark. Actually he takes the experimental chemo drug twice a day, every day. But once a week he goes to Mass General for an infusion of the other half of the treatment, Cetuximab. This is very similar to the biologic he was given last winter called Panitumumab. If you saw Mark last winter, you probably noticed the side effect of Panitumumab which was a red rash on his face and upper body. Cetuximab has the same side effect and today both his infusion nurse and I noticed that the rash has started. The good thing about Cetuximab is that it doesn’t seem to have other side effects for Mark. But the experimental drug that he takes daily, INC280, makes him quite nauseous. We work daily to adjust nausea meds and food intake to try and control this. We are making progress, but we are not there yet. He lost another two pounds in the past week, so our goal for next Friday is keep that scale steady. Day by day, we’ll make progress.
We are also trying to make progress on looking for a place to rent on the Cape. Heather went to see one house for us today, but unfortunately she felt it would be just too small. Everyone thinks that because we lived on a boat, a house of any size would be fine. But Windbird had two bedrooms AND two bathrooms and dining table could seat at least six people. And what it didn’t have was a large kitchen with a large refrigerator. So we are looking for that in a house or condo. The place Heather looked at today had a small kitchen, would have only room for two at a dining table, and it had only one bathroom. Mark and I are both searching the internet for other prospects and will make appointments to see these places early next week. We’ll head to the Cape on Monday and try to see as many places as possible on Tuesday. If it really seems hopeless, then we are going to have to get serious about securing a dock for Windbird on the Cape for the summer. And then we’ll have to get serious about getting Windbird from South Carolina to here. Two weeks ago there was only one dock available in the Falmouth area, so if this is our option, we’d better make a decision quickly. If that dock has been taken, then we are going to have to be less picky about where we live. Lots to do on this front.
But for the weekend, we are going to stay put and work on getting Mark’s nausea under control. I sure hope we are successful.
