We went to Dad's appointment today to start chemo. Dad is going to start a chemo treatment called MVAC. It stands for Methotrexate, Vinblastine, Adriamycin, and Cisplastin. It is the strongest and most effective form of chemo for bladder cancer. He will go through 3 cycles of chemo, and after 2 he will go back to the surgeon at KU med center to see how he's responding and to do more tests. Each cycle will be 28 days. Day 1 of each cycle will be a 45 minute treatment of just the methotrexate. Day 2 will be a 9 hour treatment of the vinblastine, adriamycin, and cisplastin. The cisplastin is the potent drug that will make Dad sick and is probably going to be the toughest. Day 3 he just goes and gets a shot that will help keep his white blood cell count up. Day 15 and day 22 will be a treatment of the methotrexate and the vinblastine. He will have lab work done each week. This is going to be a long road, but we will make it through it. Please pray for strength and pray for encouragement for Dad. This is really hard for him, especially since he will lose all hair he has, including his beard, which makes us all kind of sad. We have lots of support though and we are going to take things just a couple days at a time.
Dad is also going to be participating in a clinical trial for a drug that might help his nausea. He won't know if he's getting the actual medicine or if he's getting the placebo. It will only last for his first cycle of chemo, and he will only have to take this for 5 days starting on his second day of treatment. Hopefully the nausea won't be absolutely unbearable.
We are really hoping this passes quickly. Keep praying and I'll try to keep updates coming via my blog.