Med report

I got my first chemo treatment with the new drug yesterday. 

It is a gel and the doctor hopes that it will find its way better to my bladder tumors than the other drugs we have used in the past. 

Although it has been around for a while, it has just been approved for this new application. 

I have waited almost a year for it.

I am the second person to get it in our area, the first was just before me. 

The drug company sent three people down to make sure that it was administered properly. 

I looked at the literature for the drug and only 29 people were in the test group, 12% had negative side effects.

Nothing too life threatening. 

Hope I can skate through.

It is powerful. Like BCG, I am going to have to be careful where I pee because contact with this can cause pregnant women cleaning bathroom toilets to abort. I have to be careful to avoid skin contact because rashes can develop.

What they didn't tell me was that I need to do this every Wednesday for six weeks. I thought it was a one time shot.

This is problematic because number one, it is right in the middle of my Santa Barbara show and two, the effects of these types of immunotherapeutic agents tends to be cumulative with me and by the sixth week I am really hurting.

Hopefully this time will be different.

It is administered in a small tube through the penis, past the swollen prostate and right into the bladder. Historically I have experienced a high percentage of UTIs after this procedure. I am on cipro, hopefully will avert that this time. There is also a lot of general bruising involved.

Anyway I feel pretty good considering, little harder when the lidocaine wears off,  but thought that I would tell you what is going on. Minor nausea and discomfort. On top of that, I had to go to see the cardiologist this week, in order to keep getting my blood pressure medicine. Once a year. I don't get to see the doctor anymore, only the NP and things didn't go real well.

I get there and immediately say something to piss off the receptionist. Accidentally. I apologized for my poor language and behavior. A minute later a woman walks in with two boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts for the staff. My kind of cardiologist!

The NP asked me how I felt and I said fine and he asked me if I was lying?  Sort of weird. I asked him if he thought I needed to gain weight and things went downhill from there. I think we have communication issues. More labs and a calcium score tomorrow. He saw something in the heart physiology that he doesn't like.

Always something.