My little caretaker!

Well, I am started on the new Pazopanib chemo. It disturbs my sleep at night but anyway I love napping during the day, so problem solved. I just looked up the medication in OncoLink which is a good thing because I found I should not take the pills within an hour before food or within two hours after a meal.

We now have a companion for me a little shihtzu pooch by the name of Hagar. He is probably 3 years old or thereabouts, and a rescue dog from Sachs Harbour, afraid of everything and everybody. He arrived skin and bones but is now thriving on dog food for small dogs with a bit of olive oil to tickle his tastebuds.

Hagar you say? Yes, when he came to us he really looked quite horrible like Hagar the Horrible - he was so shaggy and hair coming out in clumps. But he now has a haircut and Here is his debut photo.

A few years ago in Yellowknife we had a shihtzu  by the name of Fluffy that we co-owned. She never left my side when I was getting my new titanium hips in 2012 and 2013. So the idea now is that wee Hagar can fill that companionship spot. I should have named him Shadow because he follows me everywhere. But he is the first dog ever we've had that hates car rides. He is now "nearly" house-trained, and is leash trained. So as I cope with the chemo on a daily basis Hagar will interrupt any tendency toward depression. I look forward to longer walks with this little friend when the weather turns to spring.

Still getting over a chest condition before the new chemo

Unfortunately, the Sutent knocked me out so badly, along with the nasty nausea drugs, that I ended up in Emergency one night with a full-blown panic attack. Also, my immune system was compromised, so the first contact I had with someone else's flu, down I went! I am not going to start the new chemo for a day or two yet.

I felt so sick I could understand Job's feelings in the Bible where he was so ill that he wished he had never been born. Also like Elijah when he was fleeing for his life, fed by ravens, just wanted to die, for God to take his life away. I have to admit I went through such thoughts that night on the way to the ER at Inuvik hospital.

However, sick as I was, something kind of miraculous happened in that my one kidney began to work almost normally, with my creatinine dropping into the normal range for 10 days.

I do want to start the new chemo asap though so that the tumours continue to shrink and hopefully the cancer goes into remission once again. Now that I am returning to normal, the depression has lifted again. I am taking more interest in things around me, writing poetry, practicing my harmonica, etc. I just finished a bit of engineering work for an engineering company doing a feasibility study of a wind energy project in Norman Wells. "The Wells" is in oil country but the supply is dwindling so new electricity sources are hoped for.

All for now folks. I have a new experience with an oncology doctor on the 19th of March. I go to the tele-health room at the hospital here in Inuvik and talk to a Cross Cancer oncologist by video-conferencing. So I need to prepare for that with new blood tests etc. Then I go to Yellowknife again for a CT and another consult with Dr John Walker April 9.