We're halfway there!

Hello Team Madonia! I am a week out of my last round of chemo and wanted to give a little update and write about a couple of things. First, let me give a little update about how treatment is going. Overall, I feel pretty good. My appetite is doing OK, although I did struggle to finish a burger last week which was borderline embarrassing! The biggest thing I am struggling with right now continues to be fatigue. I have no energy to do anything other than to drag myself to work. Last week I did force myself to do a 45 minute lifting session; I paid for this. Although it did feel good to lift, I was extremely tired and achy the next 3 days. I have been doing my best to walk the dog and stretch since then and will be attempting to lift again this week, but very lightly. This is very hard for me as I have always been a very physically active person and until recently was in the gym at least 4 days a week. I know this is not permanent, and my energy will come back, but the short way of explaining it is that it just really sucks!

This morning I had my blood-work drawn and a CT scan. This is the first CT scan since my surgery so although it should be a completely clear scan, it is always nerve racking waiting for the results. I will get those results on Thursday. The only thing that could delay the next round is my liver. After round 1 and 2 my liver enzymes have been very elevated. This is basically caused by the chemotherapy causing my liver to work much harder. You see, the chemotherapy that I am receiving is a nitrogen mustard, as in mustard gas, as in the crap that they used to poison people with in chemical warfare! Now while this is not the exact same thing, it is still, in essence a poison, and when you pump that crap through a human, their organs tend to get pretty pissed off! So, if as long as my liver enzymes have normalized, we are a go for round 3 next Monday. The second round of chemo was much harder than the first, so I am expecting that the third will follow suit. More nausea, more fatigue, and worst of all, less good food!

I also wanted to give a shout out to my cousin-in-law Emily, who has no doubt been a huge supporter doing everything from rockin Team Madonia gear at her Cross Fit meets to cooking my wife and I some healthy dinners. She is a great example of how family gets you through the hardest times in your life. And  this also reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Lance Armstrong (no steroid comments! lol):

“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.”

 

Another shout out to Lisa Lovullo and Kristen Downey for their support. They didn't like that there wasn't a baby line in the Team Madonia store, so they made their own OneZ! 

Again, thank you to everyone for the support, I can't put into words how much it has helped us through all of this. I am still working on having some other patient's and family members share their stories with us. I have my first person lined up, just have to get everything on paper. I am really excited to share some of their stories as I think it will really give an honest view of a cancer diagnosis from all different age groups. I also really want to post more from the hospital this time, and maybe even do some videos. Until next time, keep posting those shirts to Facebook, Instagram and as my mom calls it, Tweeter!