Todd's Journey

Hello All,

I am on day 2 of my steroid treatment to try and shut down the overactive immune system I now have from the immunotherapy.

While I have not yet gained the water weight (oh, it will come... lol) I have found myself with little to no pain since starting the therapy.

This leads me to believe that the abdominal pains I was suffering through were probably a result of the immunotherapy, and now that my immune system is settling down a bit, the pain has seemingly gone away.

Other symptoms of the immunotherapy also seem to be weening down, or gone.

The gold marker for me will be to see if my creatinine levels come down now as well. We will have those test results next Tuesday (the 27th).

For those of you who are asking me about how my bladder training is going, I am currently up to almost 2 and a half hours between urges to urinate.

I continue to try and allow more urine to sit in my bladder before going to the washroom so that my bladder will learn to expand a bit and understand it can hold more urine than it thinks.

The ends of the ureteral stents in my bladder do not seem to be irritating me as much, and there is now very little pain associated with urination.

So all in all, much improvement on that front. I will keep at the bladder training for a while still.

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.

Had a great chat last evening with my urological oncologist, Dr. Morash - one of the best I know - and he suggested to me that I might NOT have a bladder infection. Given my symptoms, it doesn't appear I do. But he ordered a urine culture be done, just to be sure.

My urine today has been clear and urine coloured again. So he may be right. We'll see in a few days when I get the results back from the culture.

Also met with my family doctor today, Dr. Seguin, to give her an update on my cancer journey. She seemed pleased with the progress being made, and told me there were a lot of positives to be proud of. Although I know that there is never a guarantee with chemo or cancer treatment, we are hoping the results of December 6th scans will be positive.

Feeling much less fatigued today, and on the upswing again. Ready to take on my last chemo cycle starting next Thursday.

Will keep you all posted.