karenulijohn

After a three month hiatus from his treatment, Harvey began the maintenance phase of infusions with Yervoy on February 5th.  The day before, we visited with the oncologist for a quick physical exam and pep talk.  He reviewed the possible side effects, told stories of the horrible experiences of other patients on the drug, and sent us off with the hopeful statement that Harvey, likely, would not experience side effects worse than he has experienced so far.  The infusion went as expected.  I went shopping and he slept through the whole thing.  He was just waking up when I returned to the center, and we decided to go straight home since he was still feeling a bit sleepy.  That afternoon, he slept for nearly three hours.  Looking back, that was something of a portent of things to come.  Over the past three weeks, he has slept around the clock at night and had two to three naps lasting a couple of hours each, every day.  The following Monday, his birthday, he had to have a CAT scan.  This is part of the protocol for the study.  We did not do much celebrating, however, because by this time, Harvey was beginning to experience some of the unpleasant side effects he had had before, including flushing and low grade fever, loss of appetite, and gastrointestinal discomfort.  He has soldiered on, trying to keep up with Rotary and the Ham Club and now, the Air Fest, but it has taken a bit of a toll.

Now for some good news. He is beginning to feel better, and his appetite is slowly returning.  He finally called the oncologist to report his experiences, and they had a fairly long conversation last night.  The big news from that discussion is that the CAT scan was negative for any cancers.  We are thrilled.

Yesterday, Harvey and I visited an ophthalmologist as part of the study protocol.  Dr. Meister was very nice, but wasn’t exactly sure what the purpose of the exam was.  In any event, he announced that Harvey has a cataract in his right eye that should be removed if he wants to see better.  This leads me to digress and tell the story of Harvey’s new glasses.  A month ago, he decided he needed to see the optometrist to get a new prescription.  We both like Melody Quenzer very much, so he made an appointment and subsequently purchased a new pair of glasses.  Now, in the forty six years we have been married, I have never known him to get a new pair of glasses that he did not complain that the prescription wasn’t right. This was no exception.  To prove his theory, he spent several hours out in the garage, testing his eyes using binoculars, and came up with the exact settings that allowed him to see perfectly out of his right eye (the one with the cataract).  He went back to Dr. Quenzer and told her that the glasses were no good and that he was returning them.  Of course, she retested him and said that she could make the prescription a little stronger.  He agreed, and now has the new prescription, but…  Back to the ophthalmologist.  Harvey recounted his experiments, and the doctor refuted his supposition by pointing out that the binoculars magnified the target.  In any case, Harvey was reluctant to set a date for the cataract surgery, but I assured the doctor that we would be calling him in a day or two to set up the appointment.

On our way home, Harvey was recounting what our wonderful Dr. Rowntree in London used to tell us.  “You’ll go along very well and then bits will begin to fall off.”  Thankfully, no “bits” have fallen off, but it is clear that there are challenges to growing older.