Gem-Ox: Watch Out for Cold Air!

Tuesday, Graham spent all day at Stanford getting the chemo. Dr. Advani came in, even though it was her day off, to say Hi to Graham and see how he was doing. After she left, Graham said, "We're so blessed to have such a caring doctor."

Dr. Advani had looked up the latest research, searching for new chemo combos Graham could try, and found a recently published paper about R-GemOx: Rituxan, and then Gemcitabine and Oxaliplatin. The odd temporary potential side effect of Oxaliplatin is that if you touch or ingest something cold, or even breath in cold air, you may feel like you are suffocating. Doesn't sound like much fun. So the nurse warned Graham to not open the refrigerator or freezer, and definitely to not eat ice cream, his preferred food these days. Alas.

So first thing the next morning, as part of his usual routine, Graham opened the refrigerator to give little Micki her favorite morning treat - a baby carrot. Yikes!!

But thankfully, nothing at all happened.

Micki loves baby carrots!

Which just goes to show you, the medical professionals cautiously and rightly give us warnings of potential doom, but it doesn't mean the doom will actually happen. As my wise neighbor Pam wrote to us, "The doctors are only practicing medicine, you know. No one can account for, or predict, the tenacity of the human spirit."