Month: April 2007

Well, I made it through the weekend without popping a neutropenic fever. But the tank is empty again, and I am on my way into clinic for blood counts, and, I assume, a few more units of blood and some platelets.

Last night I watched the Yankees and Mariano Rivera blow a 4-2 lead in the 9th to the A’s. A walk-off home run clinched it for the Athletics. As soon as I saw that ball flying over the fence, I instinctively reached for the phone to call my dad, something we’d both do during high and lowlights of Yankee games.

My final neutropenic crash came yesterday, and it is a whopper (minus a fever, thankfully). My counts were OK on Wednesday, but by yesterday they were almost at bottom, with white cells, platelets, and hemoglobin heading due south. To get me through the weekend without stroking out or bleeding to death I received 2 units of blood and a bag of platelets late yesterday in clinic and felt better almost immediately (a feeling, which is, of course, relative to my general crappy condition).

I’ll go back in for a blood count check Monday morning to see where things are at, and see if I need more blood to get me through this final neutropenia. My immune system probably won’t kick back on until at least next Wednesday, so I am laying low at home until then, forced to subdue my outrage at the crazy week that was in the world lest I upset myself to the point where I pop a neutropenic fever and end up septic.

I was never a big fan of the K Car, but former Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca really hits it as far as why things are so messed up in this excerpt from his new book:

http://www.bordersstores.com/features/feature.jsp?file=wherehavealltheleadersgone

Jacqui, the superwoman who has taken care of me nonstop these last 7 months, traveled to Boston yesterday for her Uncle’s funeral, officially becoming the Mother Teresa of the Jewish people. She left the house at 7am, breast pump in hand (so her boobs didn’t explode), flew into Logan, went to the funeral and shiva, and was forced to take a 5 1/2 hour Amtrak ride back because her return flight was canceled due to snow. It was her first day away from Sophia, and she ran into the house at 9:30, grabbed our little girl, nursed her into sweet oblivion, and put her down to sleep.

Sophia and I were so happy to have Jacqui back at home, and we thought about her all day, but we were glad that she could be with her family during this difficult time.

My recovery from cycle 4B continues apace, and I am resting comfortably at home. Right now, little Sophia is cuddled up next to me, having finishing her morning feeding. Jacq has the lucky duty of making me breakfast. There is nothing like challah french toast to ease to post-B-cycle blues.

My brain is still mush, so I’ve got nothing exciting to report here for the moment other than to say that not even a chemo-induced stupor can dull the senses to the point where watching our President doesn’t make the nausea worse.

Super nurses Kim and Renee hung my final bag of chemo earlier this afternoon, and by 2:30 I was chemo complete and on my way home for a long, long nap. There is so much to say, but I think it is going to take me a day or two to get out all that is on my mind about being done. For now though, it’s bedtime.

It is good to be lymphoma free.

It is good to be chemo free.

It is good to be home with my wife, my baby, my doggie, my mom, and my sister.

Until tomorrow then…

Tonight marks my final night as an inpatient non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma chemotherapy patient at Penn. Given my B-cycle track record it possible that I’ll make one final return to the floor next week for a neutropenic fever, but maybe we’ll get lucky, especially given all that we’ve been through these last 7 months, and just have a few crappy feverless days on the couch at home. Wish us luck.

It has been a sad day again in the Rick-Yudell orbit. This morning Jacqui’s uncle Billy (her father’s brother) passed away following his battle with kidney cancer, and we mourn his loss dearly. That marks the third death in a year in our immediately family. I did not know Billy well, but I know how much he meant to Jacqui’s father Alan and to his family and I offer my deepest condolences to them during this time of sorrow.

It has also been a sad day here on Rhoads 6, which seems to have a disproportionate share of young cancer patients in their teens and twenties, one of whom, a 25-five-year-old, is not expected to make it through the night. My heart is broken for him and his lovely family. No mother or father should have to nurse their child to their grave.

So it is with both sadness and hope that I spend my final night here. Profoundly aware of mortality, yet confident that I have a long and healthy life ahead.

Godspeed William Rick. May you and your family find peace now and always.

Last night, just after the Anchluss and around the time Maria and Captain Von Trapp returned from their honeymoon, my final bag of methotrexate stopped dripping. A few minutes after, the Von Trapp Family Singers started singing “Goodbye, Farewell”, and I am now halfway through the dreaded B cycle. So far so good.

But it wasn’t a total goodbye, farewell. I still have the cytarbine to get through, and the first of four bags of that life saving gunk started flowing through the IV just as that Nazi-rat Rolfe, having heard Leisl’s gasp, blew his whistle and called for the Lieutenant. Thankfully, the Von Trapps, with the help of the Sisters, eluded the cluchtes of the evil Nazis and escaped into Switzerland and then the United States for a quiet life of singing, waxing cross country skis, and serving hot chocolate in Stowe, Vermont at the Von Trapp Family Lodge.

After around-the-clock negotiations, me and my platelets have agreed to begin my final round of chemo today and my platelets, as of this morning, are recovered to chemo safe territory.

Here is the official statement released at 4am following the settlement which sent the platelets back to work in my marrow:

“After days of lengthy good-faith negotiations, Mike Yudell and his platelets have agreed to proceed with the final cycle of R-HYPER CVAD. The agreement which makes this possible, entered into on this day, the fifth of April , 2007, requires the following of both parties”:
a) Mike Yudell will, in good faith, do his best to eat well, stay in shape, and reduce stress to reduce chances of lymphoma ever recurring;
b) Mike Yudell will never refer to his platelets as pesky ever again. Should platelets be slow to recover following the final B cycle, Yudell will only refer to them as “my incredible platelets, which in the face of being treated with horrible toxic chemicals, are doing the best they can do to replenish my bone marrow and do that thing that platelets do.”
c) Yudell’s platelets, herein referred to simply as “platelets”, will work hard to recover following this final B-cycle; and, finally,
d) Yudell’s platelets will use their influence on marrow neighbor’s to insure a healthy and active immune system that will continually seek out any mutant or carcinogenic lymphocytes.

There is no room for me in the hospital tonight, so I will not be starting chemo until morning. My platelets and me (and Jacq, Sophia, and my mom) are heading out for a nice dinner.

My platelets are still holding out, but have agreed to sit down tomorrow morning to try to hammer out an agreement. Hopefully one can be reached quickly, and chemo can resume by noon tomorrow. I’ll keep you posted.