I went to the cancer research center yesterday to meet with the doc and go over the paperwork and insurance stuff. We talked quite a while about my medical history, my trip, and the possible treatment I may receive. There could be a problem with me starting for 2 months and being off for 2 months, but he said DO NOT cancel my trip. He saw nothing that would make him say it was a bad idea to go concerning my health. That was actually a big relief. He totally understands and supports patients needing that time away and I didn't have to convince him that it makes me feel alive again to be away from doctors, needles, and pills.
My treatment is not unique to the cancer center, but a national endeavor, so my doc is not the one in charge of it all, but is in charge of the treatment with me. He wanted to stress that while there are experiments to run, such as a drug cocktail, while I am on the treatment to see how my body reacts to them and how long it takes to metabolize and rid them from my body, I am not a lab rat. He said if he were to just administer a drug on a whim to see what it does to me, I could have his ass for assault and he'd lose his license. The drugs I'd have to take are nothing scary, just caffeine, warfarin, and two others I can't spell, but they are all common things people take. So, for example, if caffeine skews my blood count numbers or makes me feel ill, that data will be collected and one day when the treatment drug is FDA approved, it would probably say on the bottle, "avoid caffeine with this product" or if nothing happens, then it won't. I see and understand the value of the drug cocktail. And damn the luck, I *still* won't be able to have any grapefruit juice.
There will be two days where I have to stay at the clinic for 13 hours, which will suck massively, but hey, if I gotta, I gotta. And as if I have not suffered enough humiliation these past 2.5 years, and many of you on here may be envious of this part, I will have to keep... a poo diary. It will be done on something looking like a cell phone. It has 8 different pictures of turds and I press the number that mine resembles the most. The ones I saw were things that have never come out of me: elk droppings, a photoshopped brown banana, and something looking like some weird coral reef. If the most common side effect hits me, the runs, I hope there is a photo of wall spackle on there so I can press that number.
One of the plus side of things is that this treatment is not via I.V., but in pill form. They will have to draw blood a lot, and that will be done through my port. I have a 26 or 27 page consent form with info about the treatment, side effects, what sort of things I must do, and so on, and they sent me home with it, urging me not to just sign the thing, but go over it in depth and talk to family and friends about it first. I like their approach to treatment and it was also stressed that their top priority is my well being, so once again, I am not some lab rat and they give me X just to see what it does to me. Second is treating the cancer and hopefully having good results where my numbers don't rise but go down and I feel better.