Day 3 interleukin 2 treatment, Kevin's journey to the cure of Kidney Cancer

Kevin is exhausted now

Wednesday October, 22, 2014


Kevin is hanging in there and being a trooper, but he is SUPER tired.  He had his 3rd treatment at 7pm Tuesday eve.  It was tolerated a little better, still the same side effects as the others, but this time he only needed one dose of morphine to stop the rigors.  His blood pressure is still lower, his pulse is still high, he's more flush and had nausea.  Good news is that the nausea went away quickly with meds.  He said to me,"this kind of sucks!!", lol.  I am glad I am with him, as soon as he gets any side effect I call the nurse and they are all over it.  When he gets the rigors, he shakes so hard, it's a little difficult to push the call button.

Jacked up Volumetric Pumps 

It seems as though the timing of his reactions are the same.  He gets a dose, then 2 hours after it is started, the rigors and chills start.  He gets morphine then sometimes needs another morphine a half hour later.  Then a half hour after that, he sometimes needs an anti-nausea.

His treatment at 2am (4th)  were about the same as far as reactions go.  His blood work showed that he is low on Magnesium, Potassium, Phosphorus and Calcium, so they added a few extra parts to the volumetric pump so they can drip those along with the normal saline. I don't think I've ever seen one that big lol, it's like the limo of volumetric pumps.

His 10am (5th) treatment was right on time.  When he urinated it looked a little pink and his urine output was low, so the nurse called the doctor to see what they want to do.  Since he only has one kidney, they need to make sure they don't stress it beyond what it can handle.  The doctors said they will see what his labs look like and if his levels are way off, they will skip the next treatment, recheck the labs and take it from there.  They also gave him an intravenous bolus of saline, which is basically giving fluids at a more rapid rate.

He developed thrush today, which is another side effect.  Thrush is a yeast infection you get in your mouth.  It tuns the tongue white.  We have an oral rinse of nystatin for that.

As a caregiver, you have to make sure the person you are caring for drinks enough fluids.  Kevin is so tired, he's not drinking anything because he is mostly sleeping.  And although he's on a lot of IV fluid, he still needs to drink.  So that means I have to wake him to get him to drink.  He also has no appetite, yesterday he ate a half a sandwich, today he doesn't want anything to eat.  At this point, no one seems worried about that, just worried about him drinking.  Between the IV bolus and me waking him to drink fluids, his urine output and color has improved.

Kevin is doing much better since he got all those electrolytes that he was low on.  Took a few hours, but he's smiling again.  It's so good to see that smile!  What a difference those electrolytes made with him.  We are waiting on his next treatment dose at 6:30 ish.  I am sure after each does he will get to feeling pretty bad again.  I think it's just the nature of the beast.