EllingFamily:TogetherWeThrive

Round three just plain sucked! All my negative symptoms resulting from the chemotherapy just kept getting worse. My energy levels were just awful, I felt like I couldn't do anything. I spent most of my days during the last round lying in bed, not sleepy just out of energy. Also my bleeding was worse; defecating caused me serious pain because of the soreness of my anus. I also began to get really puffy and had some serious weight gain.

When I was weighed at third week of round three I tipped the scales at over 290 lbs. about twenty pounds heavier than when I began treatment. The nausea was worse and I took almost all my chemo during the first long week of the round laying in the private chemo room on a hospital bed. Sleeping during the night now, however, was better. I was able to get a solid 5-6 hours a night without the use of medication.

During the last week of the round my red blood cell counts were low enough that the oncologist thought it would be a good idea for me to have a couple of blood transfusions. So during my last week of chemo I had two blood transfusions in hopes of increasing my energy and make me feel better. After receiving my last injection of bleomycin I felt awful physically but mentally I knew I had just finished one of the most challenging things I would ever face. I thought that now that I was done with my chemo I would start to recover quickly, at least I hoped so. Everyday after my last day of chemo for 16 days, however, I vomited violently at least once a day sometimes twice a day.

On the second Friday after chemo had finished, I was scheduled for another CT scan, however, the contrast they gave me was different than other contrast I had before and I just could not keep the contrast down and had to delay the scan and get different contrast to drink. Once I got the CT scan completed, I met with Dr. Bate and I was officially declared in remission on June 9, 2004. It was one of the best days of my life. Now I would enter a time of hope and recovery.