Early the next morning, Ken and I found ourselves, once again, facing Dr. Schlabach across an all-too-familiar exam room. Dr. S. was wearing pretty much the same look on his face as he had been the first time we ever saw him. And sadly, he was telling us pretty much the same thing he had told us then–nothing much they could do. He did add one thing...that metastatic cancer is MUCH harder to fight than original cancer. I already knew that from my previous research, but hearing the Dr. say it out loud was hurtful and heartbreaking.
“So what do we do now?” was the question that was asked, though I honestly cannot remember if it came from me or Ken. Dr. S. said, “It is really up to you. We can try another round of chemotherapy and see how the cancer responds, but in all honesty, I wouldn’t look for it to help very much.” I looked at Ken and asked him what he wanted to do. He said, “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try some more chemo”. I knew that is what he would say, because even though he hated the way chemo made him feel, he was NOT about to quit. I nodded my head at him, squeezed his hand, and asked Dr. S. how soon they could schedule the chemotherapy. He said he would write the order while we were there and go ahead and have his assistant schedule the first treatment as soon as possible.
We drove home that day in silence. Neither of us knew what to say. I think we were just so weary – mind, body and soul – the effort it took to talk was just too great. I’m pretty sure we didn’t say anything about it to Jesse and Benjamin that day. In all honesty, I’m not sure we spoke to anyone about these new developments for at least a couple or three days. Probably not until the new chemotherapy started.
The “new” chemo was actually one of the oldest chemotherapy drugs on the market. It had been developed so long ago that it didn’t even have a name – just a number. It had been used for many years on just about every kind of cancer there was. In my mind, I’m thinking...”They have used all of the strongest chemo drugs available to treat Ken’s cancer. I guess now, they are going to just try what’s left.” This protocol called for six to eight treatments. The treatments only lasted about 30 minutes each. Dr. S. said we would do half the treatments, redo the bone scan, and then we could decide whether or not to continue. So...we made preparations for Ken’s THIRD round of chemotherapy. We were still fighting that monster with poison.
No comments:
Post a Comment