Thankfully the day is behind me and my stress level is down considerably since last Thursday.
Why last Thursday you might be wondering? That was my pre-chemo appointment to assess my state of health and make sure that my body can actually handle the physical stress of the treatment.
It seems that my blood work, particularly my neutrophils were in the tank! Down to a level of 1.0 whereas the minimum they will accept for chemo is 1.5.
A quick search of the internet confirmed what the chemo MD had already told me- there is little that one can do, either through diet or drugs that will accelerate the white cell count in a period of 3 or 4 days. It would come up somewhat by Monday but it might be touch and go whether it reached the 1.5 cut off.
Matt dropped me off at the LRCP at 7:30, plenty of time to get bloodwork done before the scheduled 8:15 chemo start. I was clearly the first "customer" of the day at the lab and it only took a couple of minutes for what probably was by 5th or 6th blood sample of the month. I'm guessing if I was a car the low oil light might be flashing by now.
And then back to the waiting room for a half hour of anxiety while I read a 1 year old Newsweek discussing the likelihood of a Trump Presidency.
With the clock ticking past 8:30 and no sign of being called, I actually started to relax. I figured that if the tests were not up to snuff they would have called me already. However since they don't prepare the chemo drugs until you are actually in the building and scheduled for treatment, I figured the delay was a good sign and that my results were ok.
As it turned out, I was right. The blood work was well above the prerequisite 1.5 and I was off to the races.
The treatment was a lot shorter this time as they could infuse the drugs at a faster rate due to my lack of complications during the first round. I was actually done everything by noon. A slight headache from the cyclophosphamide means they may have to slow things down slightly next time, but otherwise things are looking rosy!
Not everything is perfect, however. I'm starting to lose my hair. That wouldn't be so bad except it seems to be a random occurrence although the biggest loss happens when I wash my hair. I'm guessing dreadlocks are not an option at this point so I may get Matthew to give me a buzzcut tomorrow. In the meantime, toques and hairnets are my go to fashion accessory just so that I dont have to pick hair out of my teeth after I've made scrambled eggs!
On the plus side, I haven't needed to shave in almost a week so that gives me an extra 10 minutes in bed every morning.
For the next few days I'll be back on a 100mg dose of prednisone daily which means a ravenous appetite and bouts of insomnia. That should be fun. At least they are tapering off the prednisone dose this time so hopefully I wont get the migraines that happened after the first treatment.
With 2 trips to Toronto lined up over the next week for eye appointments I dont see any road trips in my immediate future but my 6 string is back from the repair shop so I'll be able to occupy some of my time on something other than Netflix binges.
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