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Marion – I think the secret is just keeping the vows made when we got married. Of course, my wife’s vow contained the word “obey.”
Bruce
Youza Bruce! You and your wife are very busy folks, I got a little exhausted just reading about all you do!! This is great news as the job of life is what we really are all striving to have and you and your wife have certainly mastered it.
Best wishes
-Randi-Hi Bruce,
Thanks for your latest update and wow, it sure is a great one!! You all certainly have got your life back and from what you have said, life sure does sound good!! Keep on enjoying and celebrating with your family!
My best to you and your wife,
Gavin
Fantastic, Bruce. And you kept us in the dark about all of this? Congratulations are in order, as life appears to have taken on normality again. Don’t need to remind you to enjoy life because; you already know how to do just that.
Big hugs to you and your family,
MarionWOW! Bruce this is what I call a bestest Post! We have another Super Hero in your wife. She rules CC but it is not ruling her. You have so many wonderful plans/goals she has a lot to look forward to. Wonderful happenings, wonderful wife, wonderful life. Thank you so very much for this and my wish is for continued success!
Marion asked me on another board how my wife was doing, so I’ll respond here where I have her story.
In my last post on 1/30/13, I mentioned that, because of the fevers my wife had while she was on chemo, the oncologist decided to continue the chemo on a day by day basis, and to cancel plans for any radiation. Well, that all changed. My wife finished all four 2 wk on, 1 wk off, cycles of GemCis on 2/4/13. She started 25 M-F radiation treatments with 5FU on 2/25 and ended on 4/1/13, the day after Easter. She would have finished on Good Friday but Ochsner Radiation was closed on that day.
Since then she has gotten her life back, dancing 4 times/wk, playing bridge 3-4 times/wk, researching waste and corruption in Jefferson Parish politics and making presentations at the Jefferson Parish council meetings and other public meetings. We traveled to Michigan to see our granddaughter graduate from Michigan State University earlier this month, are having a big birthday party for her and her twin sister this June where our 4 children and 7 of our 8 grandchildren are coming to New Orleans, and are planning a cruise to the Panama Canal this October.
Bruce
Hi,
NSAIDS ( ibuprofen,naproxen,Celebrex and aspirin ) are important medications for pain and fever. Acetaminophen is not NSAIDS but its effects may be related to inhibit the COX family enzymes as a COX inhibitor like Celebrex, a COX-2 inhibitor. NSAIDS are anti-inflammatory agents while Acetaminophen is not.
For fever, ibuprofen works better than acetaminophen . Recently FDA recommended acetaminophen dose to be lower to single dose not to exceed 650 mg and combination products such as Vicodin, Norco, Lortab etc. not to exceed 325mg in each tablet. Acetaminophen produces less GI side effects ( ie: stomach discomfort) than NSAIDS.; maximum daily dose should not exceed 4 gm total( in hospital practice ,most pharmacies even encouraged to lower it to not to exceed 3 gm / 24 hrs).
I do not take acetaminophen since it does not work for me as well as ibuprofen or naprosyn does. But I don’t think it will cause any problem to the liver if you take it as mentioned above unless you have liver cirrhosis or taking it with alcohol .Anyway, in emergency case whereby you need to reduce fever in ER quickly and effectively , ER will use the IV formulation of acetaminophen .
If you are on anticoagulant like warfarin, then the NSAIDS dosage may need to be adjusted by your GP if you take them on a relatively regular basis, acetaminophen does not have the same precaution as NSAIDS with regard to oral anticoagulant like Coumadin.
God bless.Bruce….correct with your assumption of NSAIDs however; the person I was referring to was a febrile neutropenic patients with unexplained fever and he indeed had been given anti-inflammatories with good results. Again, I am just mentioning this. The physician is the expert.
Hugs,
MarionThanks Pam and Marion. I think I read on these discussion boards that you shouldn’t take NSAIDs, including aspirin & ibuprofen, when you’re having chemo and my oncology nurse daughter said the same thing, so Margaret hasn’t taken these since she started chemo. She also won’t take Tylenol because she read that it was bad for the liver. During the second ER visit, the doctor suggested she take an ibuprofen to reduce the fever and Margaret refused.
Bruce
Bruce…. Only the physician would be able to determine, but I remember someone mention that his unexplained fever responded to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
Hugs,
MarionHi Bruce,
My daughter, Lauren gets a fever every time she has Gemzar, but it only lasts for about 3 days right after chemo. It never goes higher than around 100.5, so she takes Tylenol to bring it down. Margaret’s is different in that it happens so long after chemo and goes higher. I’m sorry you have to make so many trips to the ER and that I don’t know what causes her fevers, but I think you have done the right thing. All the best to you and Margaret.
Hugs,
-PamI just realized I never thanked everyone for responding to my post and providing all the useful information, so thank you very much.
To continue my wife’s story, we met with the Ochsner oncologist on October 22nd and she told us that she was prescribing four cycles of the GemCis regimen followed by 5 weeks, M-F, of chemoradiation with 5FU and if she didn’t qualify for the radiation, it would be six cycles of GemCis. We saw the radiation oncologist the next week and she was accepted for radiation, so the plan was in place.
A port was installed, with an accidental punction of a lung, and chemo was started on 11/19/12. As of 1/29/13, Margaret has finished day 1 of her 4th cycle of GemCis. She has skipped one week during the third cycle because of a low mature while blood count. She gets GemCis on day 1 and day 8 and a Neulasta shot on day 9. She’s had a fever one time in each cycle which required going to the ER three time so far. Ochsner sets a temperature limit of 100.4 for trips to the ER by chemo patients. The first trip was 13 days after the cycle 1 first chemo day, her temperature got to 100.6 at 11:00 pm. By the time they checked her at the ER it was down to 99.9 and they asked her what she wanted to do, and she chose to go home. The second trip was at 11:30 pm,19 days after the second cycle first chemo day. Her temperature got to 101.3, they put her in a bed in the ER, ran a bunch of test to find out what was causing it and decided it was a urinary tract infection. We came home at 4:30 am. The third trip was at 6;00 pm, 16 days after the third cycle first chemo day, and her temperature got to 102.7. They put her in a bed in the ER, ran a bunch of tests again, couldn’t find anything, so they put her in the hospital for two days. After the two days they still didn’t know what it was but decided it must be cholangitis.
The fevers are getting worse with each cycle. The oncologist, who we saw Monday, was getting ready to call quits to the chemo but after she saw how great Margaret looked, she decided to go with another round of chemo and she’s playing it day by day now. She did say that she was calling off any radiation because it’s hard on the liver, but I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.
Does anyone know what causes these fevers? I asked her oncologist if it could be tumor fever, and she said no, that if it was, the fevers would occur every day.
Bruce
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