Interesting

What an interesting and challenging week!

As we approached the weekend, I was suffering. My mouth sore was ever present. My hand/foot syndrome was making my hands red and sore.  And......I seemed to have developed an old friend Paradoxical Diarrhea.

Let's deal with them in order. My magical mouthwash was having minimal effect on the mouth sore. Hydrogen Peroxide (the research manager's choice of treatment) was not that effective. But the further I get from the Xeloda pills, the better it gets. My concern was how it would mesh with my tooth extraction next Tuesday.

The hand/foot syndrome was discussed with the doctor at the cancer center. He explained that there were three stages. Looking at my hands, he said that I was definitely moving moving into stage two. If I get to stage three (in which my hands start to blister and leak) I will have to stop taking Xeloda and go back to regular chemo, barring possible developments in immunotherapy or genetic engineering. I stay in touch with the Cancer Research Institute to learn of any testing in those areas. The doctor's solution was to go two more weeks without Xeloda and see how things are then, likely restarting with a smaller dose. Apparently, the redness in the hands reflects Xeloda settling there rather than the bloodstream and a few weeks off should allow the Xeloda to gradually get into the blood and therefore, taking a few weeks off is not  big risk. It definitely offers a big benefit for me. I feel better already. I will be doing a petscan in 12 days and it will be interesting to see where things stand.

The Paradoxical Diarrhea seems to be best dealt with by having a colonic. I did this late this afternoon and it feels much better. The therapist was pleased with how my colon was working. Nothing better than pleasing your colon-hydrotherapist.

Meanwhile, my blood test numbers yesterday were good. In particular, my platelet count was 97, up from 73 a few weeks ago. No doubt the research manager's recommendations of papaya, papaya leaf extract and beet root juice have had significant effect. She has not stopped reminding me of that since we got the number.

I love retrieving the mail each day. Recently, the research manager beat me to it and I asked if there was any interesting mail. She said that she had an interesting male.

"I often drink water and when I do, I drink high ph Essentia water. Stay alkaline, my friends."