Todd's Journey

The story of my cancer journey

Had my first immunotherapy session today. Almost made it through the whole session, but unfortunately had a reaction with 8 minutes to go. I began shaking significantly for almost 20 minutes. They managed to get that under control by administering large doses of Benadryl, and a steroid. The shaking did subside and i did finish the remainder of my immunotherapy session with no further incident.

The ER doctor and Pharmacist at the Hospital said the the shaking can be expeccted when my immune system is in 'overdrive' from the therapy drug. They will give me the benadryl and steroid prior to the immuno drug next session in hopes to prevent the shaking from occurring again.

Unfortunately the Benadryl dosing and steroid made me very tired and weak again. I had to leave the hospital in a wheelchair, and when I got home, my legs collapsed just upon entering the house. Jamie helped support me to the floor and then we waiting there for about 5 minutes until I had enough strength in my legs to get and up make it to the couch. My strength returned in the afternoon.

As for the bladder update, I am still urinating very frequently but the time in between needing to urinate is slowly getting longer. The pain in urination is also getting better, with less stinging and burning now. I suspect things are getting better, but it sure is a slow process. The good news is I am peeing on my own, and my urine is quite clear.

That's the update for now. Take care everyone. Talk to you again soon, and I'll try and do a video blog update soon.

Had a quick appointment today with my family doctor. She is going to start to get me off the insulin since my chemo is now done, and I can back to my regular diabetes medication again. We will slowly transition off the insulin over the next few months.

The new stents seem to be working well, but my bladder is still not used to having so much urine in it, so it's causing me to go to the bathroom whenever it gets a small amount of urine in it. The only fix for this is time right now. My bladder has to get used to having urine in it, and increasing the volume before it makes me want to go to the washroom.

The stinging and burning during urination is better now, but stilll a bit bothersome. This will also take a bit of time to heal, and is normal following a cystoscopy and stent insertions.

My next big test will be tomorrow when I start my immunotherapy. Hopefully I will not have any major side effects and will have good success with the medication.

I will keep you all posted on my immunotherapy sessions.

Neph tubes gone!

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Procedure went well this morning. The nephrostomy tubes were removed, and stents were inserted. They seem to be working fine so far, and I seem to be slowly getting back to normal urination.

I do have a bit of pain right now but that is irritation caused by the catheter that was temporarily in place.

The pain should get better over the next few days.

Update on go forward plan

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Hi Everyone,

Happy New Year!!

Tomorrow I will be going in for a cystoscopy followed by a potential stent insertion. The whole experience should take about an hour, and I will be out for the procedure.

Since completing my chemotherapy, my urological oncologist has not been able to adequately look at the inside of my bladder. Tomorrow he will do so and determine how well my ureters are draining from my kidney to the bladder. If they look relatively good, he may be able to remove the neph tube, and allow the kidney to drain into the bladder on it's own, or he may insert a stent from the kidney to the bladder along my ureter to assist in the draining, and then remove the neph tube.

The default option for tomorrow will be to insert stents into both my kidneys to the bladder, and to remove the neph tubes.

The stents might then come out in a few months if I can't tolerate them, or the draining continues to improve.

I will post a message to you all on Wednesday to let you know how it all went.