During the rounds of radiation, the oncologist placed Tim on a series of medications. One was a chemotherapy drug that he just took at home each day. To his great pleasure, Tim did not loose his hair on this drug!! (We Zacharias' have a thing about hair and he was very concerned that he would loose his! ;) He was also placed on a steroid drug to go along with the chemo. The steroid is supposed to help with nausea, but it's main purpose is to cause your body to grow new bone. Multiple myeloma lives in the bone marrow, but attacks the bones from the inside out. The tumor that attacked Tim's bone has basically eaten it from the inside out. His spinal column is now weakened and he has to be very careful not to lift anything over 15-20 pounds.
Anyway, the steroid was helping to grow new bone - it will never be at the strength that it was before the cancer, but it could help. Well, the steroid did funny things to Tim. Besides having cold sweats and a racing heart, he became the "horse of a different color" from the Wizard of Oz! After receiving the Decadron treatment, he would turn white as a sheet for several hours; then his skin would look yellow, like he had jaundice. Several hours later, he would look wind-burned...his skin would have a reddish tint to it. Finally, the color changing would stop and he would regain his normal skin color. This whole color-changing process would take a little over 24 hours.
It was kind of funny to watch the process and we got a laugh out of it. There were a few occasions when he would ask the doctors to re-schedule the shot or allow him to get it eary - he was trying to work around having to visit people. He didn't want to alarm people with the way he looked - especially when he was yellow!
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