Everolimus Side Effect #1


Loss of Appetite.

To be fair, Colin lost weight for a variety of reasons…

1. Obstructed Bowels

Before we went to Hawaii, Colin was eating less because of the pain it caused.
It’s extremely fun for me me that
the internet has soooo many pictures for this…

This ones…informative at least.

2. The Flu (Regular. Not the swine variety)

When we got to Hawaii, we all got the flu.
So none of us felt like eating.

3. Recovery of Steroids

He actually gained some weight due to steroids.
He went from a size 36 pants to a size 40.

From his checkup right before going to Hawaii
to the day he went out of concern for his prolonged flu symptoms,
about 3 weeks,
he lost 15 pounds.

Segway:
This flu bug we got lasted for weeks.
Christine and I had it for 3 weeks, but we are not on chemo.
Remember, chemo suppresses the immune system,
so when Colin hadn’t shaken it, they called him in for emergency blood work,
particularly to check his white blood cell count.

His was good.
They put him on antibiotics.
But it was important that his CANCER doctors did this.
When you are on chemo, your choices of antibiotics are much slimmer.

Now, back to the weight loss:
This was a huge alarm, even considering the afore mentioned factors.

Noting his loss, we decided he needed to concentrate on eating
whether he felt like it or not.

This is easier said than done.
He once went an entire day with out eating until dinner.
Just because he never felt hungry.

When I went with him to his second “Round 2 Avastin” treatment
he had lost another 5 pounds.

This put him at a loss of 20 pounds in four weeks.

He mentioned to the nurse his weight loss,
and she explained that loss of appetite
was one of the main side effects
associated with his new chemotherapy, Everolemus,
second only to fatigue,
which he also has (future post).

FEED ME SEYMOUR!
FEED ME SEYMOUR!

Cancer is like a parasite.
And it WILL get fed.
It sucks glucose out of your system,
and if there isn’t enough for you left in your system,
your body starts burning fat.

Simple cause and effect.
This is one of the reasons we started fortifying his body early on.

His weight is stable now.
He is eating.
And bonus: He can fit into his skinny jeans again!
back to a size 36…and holding.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 at 11:23 pm and is filed under Everolimus. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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