Stroke - Treatment Update #3

Friends,

My doctors call me a statistical anomaly; I like to think of it as statistically unlucky. My body just hasn’t tolerated chemotherapy very well. As a result of the chemo, I had a stroke about 2 weeks ago during the middle of the night and woke up temporarily paralyzed in my left arm and leg (quite scary!). I was immediately taken to the emergency room and admitted to the hospital. In the hospital, I began to get feeling and motion back. After a couple days in the hospital, I was released home and am about to start intensive speech, physical and occupational therapy so I can regain a normal course of life. This update serves as the story about what happened and why this happened.

There I was lying on my bed, taking part in a nightly male ritual of being horizontal and watching Sportscenter. I had one leg propped up on the other and inexplicably the leg began to waver then fall to the bed. I felt a weird sensation in my arms and legs (probably adrenaline kicking in, I thought to myself) and wondered if I was fading into obscurity. My leg worked fine after that episode and my doctors believe what I just described was a seizure resulting from the stroke that had just happened. I went to sleep thinking nothing was wrong and I was going to go into work the next morning, no problem. In the middle of the night, I woke up and my left arm was tingly like it had fallen asleep (point of concern #2). In the morning, I tried to get out of bed but my left leg couldn’t support my body when I tried to walk and my left arm couldn’t pull my weight up off the floor. At this point Michelle and my parents were freaking out and began to drag me down carpeted stairs to the car so they could take me to emergency. For all you guys, let me just set the record straight right now, do NOT let someone drag you down carpeted stairs with boxer briefs on – rug burn on an area you don’t want rug burn(you’ve been warned!). With my arms and legs flailing, getting me into the car was an episode in and of itself. I felt like a sardine being squished into a can.

When I arrived at the emergency room, they immediately sent me off for tests for what they thought was a stroke. During this time, I was able to lift my left leg and move the fingers on my left hand. The tests showed that a blood clot had broken off from somewhere in my body and had gone to the right side of my brain, which of course, controls the left side of the body. The chemotherapy for treating liver cancer is very specialized and cuts off the blood supply to the tumors by attacking a certain element in the blood (VEGF inhibitor). I was taking a combination of Avastin and Tarceva, both common cancer fighting drugs and VEGF inhibitors. These can do tricky things to the rest of a person’s blood flow. In about 2% of the cases, people taking VEGF inhibitors have reported strokes. Last time I was one of seven worldwide cases where the chemotherapy attacked my brain coating (myelin). This time, I’m 2%! What happened was, the chemo drugs caused a blood clot in my veins that went to my heart and due to a small hole in my heart, that was recently discovered, the clot was able to jump from a vein to an artery where it can do real damage by getting up into my brain, which it did. The hole in my heart is very small and does not require surgical correction, in fact; it doesn’t harm me to have it (except in this unique circumstance). During my stay in the hospital, I was constantly in a hospital gown and boxers (not comfortable attire) and they kept getting my out of bed to walk the halls without closing the backside of my “gown”. I told Michelle, I was trolling the hall for chicks who liked my butt. During my hospital stay, I was forced to watch the season finale of LOST on the hospital TV while getting distracted every ten minutes with someone coming into the room wanting to poke and prod me. It was horrible, as I am a huge LOST fan!

By the time I left the hospital, I hadn’t found any chicks in the hallway who liked my butt, but I was back to somewhat normal physical condition (walking on my own, eating dinner with my left hand – there were a few fumbles into the lap on that one). The only problem was my speech was very short and matter of fact, meaning my personality wasn’t back fully at that time.

Let me assure everyone that I’ve gotten better every day since I was released from the hospital and will begin intensive therapy on Thursday at Harborview, a hospital that specializes in stroke treatment; to make sure I get back to 100% pre-stroke.

T-Mobile has been absolutely stellar in their support during this hard time. I really appreciate the way they’ve gone out of their way to make me feel like I shouldn’t worry about work and my job. Such a delight, as many employers these days are turning their cheeks on their employees. I miss work and the people at work very much, and as much as I’d like to get into the Young and the Restless, I just don’t know if staying at home day after day is for me.

What’s next in terms of cancer treatment? That was my first question for my oncologist. The simple answer is, it’s very unclear. They don’t know when a good time to restart my chemotherapy drugs is and they certainly don’t want to put me on any kind of VEGF inhibitor chemo. The only options I have are to start on the traditional chemo that kills fast dividing cells and causes patients to be very sick (vomiting, fatigue, night sweats). At this point, I’m running out of good options. So let’s all hope this next round of chemo works well!

Thanks for the prayers and the support! I will never turn it down and encourage people to reach out to me to discuss this if you have questions. I’m not trying to be super private about this. I’m happy to talk about it, as there is a ton of unanswered questions, even for me (the guy who gets to ask all his doctors as many questions as he wants).

Rhone