Treatment 3 update

Before each treatment they take a CBC blood test to see if things, from a blood perspective, are good-to-go. Before this last treatment (cycle 3 of 8), they mentioned my platelets were low which means that I don't have a good clotting factor in my system: gums may bleed, bruise easier, etc. This isn't unusual to see during the course of treatment, but is unusual in the fact that it's come up so soon. I had some antibiotics in a few weeks prior which may have effected (affected?) the platelet count, though I don't think anyone can say for sure. Apparently platelets don't repopulate very quickly so there was some indication that a blood transfusion may be in order somewhere down the line. Great. Char Sweat, who went with me, explained that they do a great deal of type-matching so that your body doesn't reject the transfusion. I asked, "And if it does reject it? What does that look like?" I forget exactly what she said, but it didn't sound pretty, so I was glad they do their best to not let THAT happen! The up-shot though was that my treatments got 'tweaked.' More about that later...

My efforts to circumvent my seemingly elongated treatment plan was also thwarted. I cannot do chemo and radiation at the same time because it'll deplete my bone marrow. Not a good thing, so that was out. I also asked when my hair might come back hoping it could start growing back in cycles 5-8, but that too was a resounding NO. It'll start coming back about 6-8 weeks after I'm done w/ chemo. Bummer. So I just figured it out: my last chemo treatment is around Feb. 11, radiation starts around Mar. 4, done with radiation around April 6, (hair starts coming back around that same time - yea!) reconstruction some time between Sept 2010-Mar 2011. Ughhh.

About the tweaked treatment:
It turned out to be a good thing. I'm not sure what exactly they changed or if my body is simply responding a bit better, but physically this was an easier week. The last round I spent several days laying around, then a few good days, a few days in a slump, and then a few more good days. This time I was good pretty much the whole time. I had a few days of bleh, but functional; and then I really bounced back - physically - able to do all the usual household stuff and exercise/run! Yea!

However, through all that I was emotionally in the toilet. I spent Friday-Monday feeling quite sorry for myself and then Tues-Thursday being just plain grumpy. The emotions included bemoaning the entire LONG process, questioning why the heck I'm even doing this, feeling like the whole chemo treatment is a big overkill, ticked at my 'new' limited closet options... My newest favorite phrase about all of it: "This is stupid!" Is this treatment helping or ultimately harming? I was a healthy person to begin with, now I have concerns about all kinds of things - not just presently, but for the future as well. How can that be good? All these drugs may be killing the possible stray cancer cells, but are they damaging other organs at the same time? So my challenge for the doc this coming Thursday is for him to remind me why I'm doing all this.

I could go on and on, but I'll stop here. Enough ranting.

On another note: if you didn't hear Josh's sermon on grace this past Sunday, bug him to get it put on rrcworship.com so you can listen to it. I may have a biased opinion, but I thought it was excellent. I might have some thoughts to blog about another time. We shall see!

Good night moon.