Well That Is An Interesting Side Effect

Before I get started, I just want everyone to be aware that Brett Favre has decided to play one more year in Minnesota.  Prince must be super excited.

Okay so today was an interesting day, as I had my consult with the medical oncologist.  The medical oncologist is the doctor that oversees and mixes the drugs to be used in chemotherapy.  She is young and very smart, so I feel as if I am in good hands with Dr. Movva.  As mentioned earlier, chemo is such an unknown to me, so I have always been a little anxious to find out the details of the treatment.  She started the appointment off by talking a little about why chemo is necessary for my cancer.  Basically my class of sarcoma is quite aggressive, in that it grows fast, and larger tumors are more likely to spread cancer cells throughout the body.  Although my CT was clean, that doesn't mean that there aren't little microscopic radicals floating around.  The chemo has the job of basically nuking all these free radicals as well as to begin the process of shrinking the tumor to make the final surgery less invasive when it is finally conducted.

There are a few tests and other things I have to go through first, but it sounded like we are going to start the treatment sometime around 9/1.  The way it works is this:

1.  I will be admitted to the hospital and given treatment for about 3-4 straight days
2.  Once I'm discharged I will be sick for about 6- 10 days with symptoms very similar to a very bad case of the flu(or worse)
3.  My body will then begin to recover from the poison, I mean treatment, and I will feel very close to normal for about a week.  The process will then start over again.

I will do this same routine 6 times, so over an 18 week period I will receive 6 treatments and have an MRI taken after the 2nd, 4th, and 6th treatments.  Hopefully this will show that the tumor has shrunk in my thigh, which also will mean that the any free radicals were also nuked.  Despite getting hit with the realities of my tumor, I came away as positive as ever, because my doctor seemed adamant that her goal was to kill this disease, which is something I can get behind her on.

Sorry tonight's post was very technical and absent of my contrived humor.  I will end it with one funny exchange during the appointment.  So while she is talking about side affects such as possible heart issues and immuno deficiencies, she starts to lead into another dramatic side affect.  At this point I am like what the heck else can be worse than that?  Then she says there is a threat that I could become sterile due to the chemo.  I have to laugh at this point, because the last thing on my mind right now is making babies.  Regardless, we began to discuss the possibility of using a sperm bank to preserve the Oyler "legacy"(bad putting, good facial hair).  Of course all I can think about is Road Trip when that nerdy kid can't donate sperm for money because he had sex within the last 24 hrs (with a girl! if you remember).  So I have to make a phone call to check into the monthly rate at the local fertility clinic tomorrow, and of course plan my donation so that I haven't been with a large black woman, or smoked marijuana within 48 hours prior to donating.*

Thank you all for your support!


*Mom, I don't do either of these, please watch Road Trip again for clarity