A change in treatment

My second chemo infusion of Gemzar was last Friday. Today I am still feeling its effects with a headache that doesn't respond to pain killer and swelling and pain around my ankles. My blood test showed that Gemzar attacks my bone marrow a little too hard as my platelet and neurtophil (infant white blood cells) counts are too low to continue with Gemzer. In fact, Saturday, I made another trip to Hershey to get a shot to stimulate white cell development. My oncologist, Dr. Yee,  is proposing that I stop getting Gemzar and start taking a different chemo orally — capecitabine (brand name is Xeloda®) — in two weeks.

I plan to administer this chemo to myself, two pills a day, for fourteen days; then one week off. The pills will be sent to me in the mail after getting insurance approval (part of the reason of the two week wait before starting). It appears this chemo can have just as many side effects, only they're different!! While it is not as aggressive on my bone marrow and its function I could end up with hand-foot syndrome which is painful inflamed blistering red hands and feet! I hope I can dodge that one. Hair loss is more likely. But of course, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting are also near the top of the list of side effects. Arrggh!!. I am tired of trips to the bathroom.

Thanks again to everyone for your continuous thoughtfulness and prayers for Barb and me as we take this unexpected, unplanned journey.

On the normal side of life, (the lighter, fun side that I much prefer over the cancer side) this was a great weekend to feast on band music! Three colleges held college wind ensemble or symphonic band concerts in the area. I love listening to college band concerts so I had some ear candy. This was food for my spirit. Here was the schedule:

Friday night: Millersville University played at the Ware Center in Lancaster. Check.
Sunday afternoon: Elizabethtown College wind ensemble concert on campus in Elizabethtown. Check.
Sunday evening: Messiah College had a concert in Grantham. I didn't make it to this one. Too tired.

Taking a video with my iPhone is an insult to the band, videography and sound recording, but I did it anyway because I saw many young people in the audience doing it. Why? I don't know. I did it to show the Millersville Wind Ensemble in Steinman auditorium in the Ware Center. But I'm having technical difficulty uploading the video. I will try to get it here later.

This is the E'town College band in its overly purple Leffler Chapel.

Symphonic band music is very exciting to listen to live. Wind ensembles with all the percussion have a sonorous quality that is very dynamic. (No disrespect to string players here. Orchestras have the same dynamics.) And the repertoire of interesting modern band music is huge... and amazing. There is a lot of great band music out there.

I've also been listening to audiophile recordings of Jerry Junkin conducting the Dallas Wind Symphony playing Percy Grainger, Malcom Arnold and Ron Nelson pieces. What fun.

My interest in band music started when I was in grade school and we had a 10-inch LP record titled "Here Comes the Band". I played it over and over on our Magnavox phonograph record player. It had mostly marches and, as I recall, I fell in love with the majorette gracing the album cover as well.