Phantom smells and round 2 of chemo

The last time I wrote a post, Bill was in the middle of his second steroid taper and had just finished a successful first round of chemo. 

Today, we're in the middle of his second round of chemo. In the past month, here's what's happened.

A couple of days after Bill's taper off the steroids, he experienced some pretty intense olfactory hallucinations, or "phantom smells". He describes the smell that he experiences as "ozone-ish, like the smell of electricity, but not quite." It's not a smell he's smelled in real life, and it's a little unpleasant. He experienced these olfactory hallucinations off-and-on all morning on October 2nd. We called the neuro-oncologist and they had Bill start another course of dexamethasone (the steroid), this time at the lowest dose of .5mg. 

The dexamethasone worked and Bill didn't have any more strange neurological symptoms. He finished that course of dexamethasone last Saturday, October 10th. He did perfectly for 6 days off the steroid, and then experienced a very brief phantom smell on Friday morning (yesterday). Compared to the previous episodes that were minutes long, this one was a few seconds. We called the neuro-onc and they have Bill back on .5mg dexamethasone, and we'll try coming off again in a few days. 

Neurological symptoms are a little scary, but this is all hopefully part of the healing process from surgery. Dexamethasone reduces swelling a little bit, which may take pressure off of whatever area of his brain is causing these strange effects. I'm under the impression that this is one of many weird things that can happen as you heal from a craniotomy, but it's possible that it's a prodrome to a seizure and that we need to add something else to supplement or replace Keppra if it isn't enough to keep Bill seizure-free. We would really like to avoid having to put Bill on a second anti-seizure medication, if possible.

On the chemo end of treatment, Bill started round two on Wednesday of this week (10/14). His dose of Temodar went up to his full dose this treatment round (400mg each night instead of 300mg). He has been doing really well and not experiencing many side effects... at least until a very rapid unexpected wave of nausea hit him while we were driving home from an appointment earlier today. He lost most of his breakfast in my car :(

I, thankfully, managed to keep my sympathetic vomiting under control by pulling over quickly, opening my window, and sticking my head out of it. Poor Bill had to ride home with his breakfast smoothie all over himself and all over his side of the car. 

Cancer protip for caretakers: have a plastic bag and some paper towels in your glove compartment. 

Bill felt immediately better after vomiting, so we gagged and giggled at the ridiculousness of the situation all the way home. He's had a shower, a Zofran (anti-nausea pill) and is good to go. I've spent most of this afternoon cleaning my car. 

If anyone in Austin knows of a good car detailer, my poor little Subaru could use it!

Overall, things are good and we're learning how to be prepared for all kinds of circumstances, including surprise puke ;-)