Had a meeting with Dr. Kasamon

I had a meeting with Dr. Kasamon yesterday, my monthly one. We talked about the plans for chemotherapy, picking fruit from pick-your-own farms, the origin of his last name, and various other things. I happened to mention in passing that I had a blog for my family and he said that he had actually seen it before; he was Googling around for his name, which is very uncommon, and it was in the first couple pages of results. Funny! Also, I'm friends with him now on Facebook.

Anyway, back to what I'm sure you're all curious about: the chemotherapy. As of Monday we are removed the following drugs:

• Irinotecan
• Emend
• Bolus of 5-FU

Irinotecan is the bad stuff, as has previously been mentioned. Emend is an anti-nausea drug I've been getting on top of another one. A bolus of 5-FU means a large amount administered all at once. Dr. Kasamon (and many others) believe it doesn't really have any good anti-cancer fighting value, but is just done because it's always been done that way. Not doing it should help blood counts and maybe some other things too.

I am going to continue to get, for the immediate future at least:

• 48-hour infusion of 5-FU
• Avastin
• Leucavorin (folinic acid)
• Aloxi
• Decadron
• Ativan, if I want/need it

Aloxi and Decadron are anti-nausea medication. I'm not sure if I'll really need those either now that I'm off of Irinotecan. But better to ease off than to vomit everywhere I suppose.

For the immediate future I will still have the pump for 48 hours Monday-Wednesday, which is kind of a drag. 5-FU is available orally in a drug called Xeloda (Capecitabine), which I am going to try after a couple of infusions with the above cocktail. So when I'm on that I won't get the 48-hour 5-FU but will continue to go in for infusions of the other stuff (except maybe Aloxi/Decadron/Ativan).

I kind of expected this, but I'm pretty much going to be doing this for the rest of my life. I'm not super excited about that, but I guess given the alternative I'll take the infusions. We didn't get super into details, but I think eventually it might just be the 5-FU, which I can have orally. I'm not sure if I'll be on Avastin forever, which requires an infusion. At least that infusion is only 30 minutes long (and has no real side effects).

Regarding pick your own fruit, Dr. Kasamon said he and his wife enjoy going to Larriland Farms, which is out by the Days End Horse Farm west of here. He also said there's an organic pick-your-own place in Westminster called Baugher's Farm. Emily and I will have to check those out. We have yet to go to any places like that up here (or in Florida, for that matter). Seems like an excellent way to get fresh produce in quantities that we'll actually finish.

It's a yucky day outside so far. Right now Emily is making cheesecake brownies, which is super exciting. We're not sure what we're going to do today. We both want to eat at the Red Canoe, though we're not sure we'll get out there. I might do something around the house, don't know what. (We had some sugar ants get into our kitchen yesterday, that was fun. I think we'll be able to keep them relatively controlled. Apparently nearly everybody gets ants in their house in the summer up here.) Also Kevin (from work) is playing at Leadbetter's in Fell's Point tonight; we might go to that. Or maybe do nothing! Oh yeah, there's always test driving cars, which I haven't done any more of. I'm not in the mood for it right now though.

Update 2009-06-20 19:26:

We went to Red Canoe for lunch. It was excellent, though I was strangely not all that hungry. I had a vegetarian chili soup which was excellent. Emily had a gazpacho soup which I think she also very much enjoyed. And we split a panini which neither of us nearly finished. We also got blue corn chips along with it and we each had a medium mocha. Then we got two muffins to go. We were going to get some for Raquel (Todd's wife) because she once mentioned to me that she wanted to go there, and it's not really very close to their house. But I didn't (and still don't) know any of Todd's phone numbers miraculously, so I couldn't call and make sure that we could drop them by. I also don't know exactly where they live, which is also problematic. Oh well, we'll have to go back after I get that sorted out.

Here are some pictures to make you wish you had come, too:

Mocha mustache

Gazpacho and panini

Chili and panini

Panini close up, smiling at me

Aloof kitty cat who did not want to be my friend

We were super tired for some reason afterwards. We both ended up passing out asleep for a few hours. Ugh. It was great, but I really didn't need it. Emily hates naps, too.