Day 8 of interleukin 2 treatments

Monday October 27, 2014

It's been 4 days since Kevin had his 9th and last dose of IL-2.  He's doing a tiny bit better today, a tiny bit.  He's still very tired, his mouth sores are starting to get a little better too.  He's lost almost all of the water weight he gained as a side effect of IL-2, all but 4 pounds.  He was able to eat a bit last night, more than other nights.  He tries to do a few small meals, because his stomach can't handle a big one, it makes him nauseated.  He's still taking the anti-nausea meds and he's still taking cipro (antibiotic).  His skin got a little irritated, but not like some of the stories we heard about flaky peeling skin.  It was more red and itchy, and most of the redness is gone now, so at least that's one good thing.

Kevin, before our drive today 

Today we went for a ride.  Sounds funny to say that, because he's an adult, lol, but this is a big milestone for someone going through chemo.  I had to go to Lowes to get salt for the water softener, and he decided he'd come along.  He even went inside.  I only had the one thing to get, so it was a quick trip.  It took everything out of him though, so now he's sleeping.  But that's o.k. because I was happy that he WANTED to go.  I think that's a good sign that he maybe in an upward direction to getting better.  Slowly but surely.  Then the poor guy has to do it all again November 10th.  He said "I don't want to talk about the next time, I just want to get through this time."  Fair enough.  It's not an easy journey, but I sure hope we get some excellent news when he's scanned.  He is supposed to have his scans December 15th or so.  We don't have any set date for that, but somewhere in that area.  Then about January 5th he will have his next round of treatments which will be one week on, 2 weeks off, one week on, then a re-scan 5 weeks later.

If the first set of scans show that there was no improvement, then he won't have the second round of IL-2.  If that's the case, there is another type of meds he can take that has good results in keeping the cancer the same size, sort of like a "controlled cancer".  I believe that one is called sutent, although there maybe a few different ones for that.  I'll write more about that in another blog IF we need it.  I am asking all to pray that we won't need any other meds and that IL-2 will be his cure.

Thank you for reading  :)