Dakota Graves

Ok, so as most of you know I was going up to Indianapolis to meet with some of world specialists in testicular cancer. The doctor my normal doctor sent me up to see in Indy is actually the same doctor who treated Lance Armstrong!! How cool is that? Anyways, I actually went up yesterday even though my last note said it would be today. I just wrote the date down before it was set in stone. They gave me MORE tests and discussed with me all the possibilities of the disease and the corresponding options of treatment. However, no decisions could be made then. They did get back to me about noon today and that bring us up to speed. Ok, so on to the news.

Good first then? So, like I said in my last post, the cancer that I am afflicted with right now could either be new (the best case scenario) or an older returning cancer (a much, much worse scenario). Well it turns out that my doctor’s think it is a new cancer after all. This is very good news! An old cancer returning would be very bad and would require a prolonged battle and major surgeries, as I heard in full detail yesterday. Not to mention, I would be required to stay in Indy for treatment. Since it is new I will be able to stay in Louisville for my chemotherapy and surgery (Yay!). Tomorrow, June 18th at 11am I will be having my right testicle removed and replaced with a prosthetic. I will start on testosterone replacement therapy immediately afterward but I will need a few weeks of recovery before I can begin chemo.  July 1st or around the beginning of July I will start chemotherapy.

Now onto the bad news. While we know that my treatment will be easier since it is a new cancer it will still be significantly harder that it was when I was 16. First off, I have had so many surgeries in the same area that I have built up a lot of scar tissue. This will make tomorrow’s orchiectomy (removal surgery) more complicated than it would have been. It will also make my recovery harder. The more they have to cut due to previous scar tissue the harder it will be for those (they go in through the pelvis) muscles to recover. The harder it is for those muscles, the harder it will be for me to walk after the surgery.

Secondly, my chemotherapy will have to be a cycle longer (and consequently harder) than it was when I was 16 because of complications I took last time with a medicine called Bleomycin. Bleomycin is a common medicine in fighting testicular cancer, however it can only be taken during one prescribed round of chemotherapy. More than that it can cause serious damage to my lungs ability to process oxygen and potentially cause pulmonary fibrosis. Therefore, my doctors want to avoid those possibilities. My chemotherapy will be 4 cycles instead of the normally prescribed 3. That will amount to at least 12 weeks of chemo but it could be longer than that.

Thirdly, I will have to have a port installed in my chest in order to recieve chemotherapy. This is something I have avoided like crazy. I mean, why would I want to have a tube hanging directly out of my chest? Before I had a small tube hanging out of my arm called a pick line, but this seems like it is a little worse. Maybe I am just over-reacting but I guess we’ll see tommorrow night when I wake up.

So yea, my future for the next few months has been decided. I should be getting out of chemotherapy around the end of September if everything goes well. My birthday is July 10th, so I guess I’ll be in chemo then too, which sucks but the there isn’t anything I can do about it. Obviously I wont be back to NKU as soon as school starts, but I’m hopeful I will be back in the second half of the semester. If I can’t make it back then I will definitely be back in the Spring.

Thanks for continued the support everyone!!

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