Follow Up

Today's the day I get my white blood cells checked to be sure they don't drop too low. So off for a blood draw and a visit with my onc nurse, B, to see how I'm doing this morning. Turns out that my counts are a little lower than they were last time, but B tells me that as long as I don't get a fever or chills in the next 48 hours, I'll be just dandy.  My plan is to lay low and keep away from germs. Lucky for me, darling daughter is pretty good at monitoring the "hand washing, hand sanitizing, no sharing with Mom" routine, because truth be told, I just don't pay as much attention as I probably should.

After my two day quarantine, the wbcs should be kicking back in. The timing is perfect, because I have a date to see the new Jane Eyre movie on Sunday. Can hardly wait!

Then it's back to work on Monday so I can catch up on the week I was out. This second round of chemo was more tolerable than the first. Less body aches, less ibuprofen -- things went pretty smoothly for me. And B cleared up a little bit of info for me. Lots of folks have mentioned that the effects of chemo can be cumulative, which had me a little worried, but she said that the only cumulative effects I can expect are tiredness. I'm a good napper, so a little tiredness is totally doable. 

Looking forward to feeling better and better over the next two weeks. Next round is scheduled for April Fool's Day.

Round Two

How nice to have wi-fi in the infusion room. Swedish Cancer Institute rocks! Of course, now that I say that, I find that even though my mac says I’m connected to the network, I can’t get to anything. Unless my oncology nurse is also a network troubleshooter, I may be posting this from home after all. (She’s not, I asked.)

I’m here at the institute getting my second chemo infusion. I’ve got a nice reclining chair, and a bed next to my chair, in case my dear husband decides that he needs a break from the hard little chair he’s sitting on and takes a wee nap. There’s an old 13-inch TV with limited cable (AMC is playing The Thomas Crown Affair – love Pierce and Rene, and Denis too). And if we decide to break out Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, there’s a DVD player (as well as a VHS player, if I wanted to dig out some old tapes and bring them with me next time). OK, so the entertainment technology is not cutting-edge, but as long as the medical equipment is, I’ll call it good.

Infusion starts with my pre-meds – all the anti-nausea medication (three different ones), which seem to do the trick because I didn’t have any nausea after my last treatment. Pre-meds take about an hour. Then the chemo starts. I get two chemo meds, one after the other and each takes about 45 min to an hour. Then it all gets topped off by a shot of neulasta – the wonder drug that jumpstarts my blood marrow’s ability to generate white blood cells. I certainly have enough distractions, but I’m happy to just sit here and enjoy the day. Sometimes the meds make me a little drowsy, so I may close my eyes for a while. All in all, not a bad way to spend the day.

I’m anticipating having a lovely evening visiting with my babysitters. My dear husband doesn’t want to leave me at home alone after chemo, and he has to take off for the mountains this afternoon, and darling daughter is working a 12-hour shift and won’t be home until later, and daughter’s dearest (ours too) has work obligations until later, so dear husband has lined up sitters for me. I’m hoping to spend the evening baking cookies and playing scrabble. A great end to a lazy day.  

(And I finally figured out how to connect to the network, so am able to post this from my chemo chair. hooray!)

Shedding

I'm feeling a little like my old lab, who was a champion shedder. Since last Thursday, my comb has been harvesting more than the usual amount of hair with every pass. The result is a thinning head of hair. I was pretty ok with it until yesterday when someone commented on my thinner than normal mop, making me a little more self-conscious than I care to admit. So today I wore a hat to work. Hats and scarves are in my future, friends, so I hope I can learn how to tie a decent-looking scarf. I'm still waiting for my hair to come out in clumps -- that hasn't happened yet. But when it does, I'll be shaving my head bald. I think it's too much to ask that I have a great looking bald head, so I'm going to save my wishes for better hair when the new crop grows back.

Other than the shedding and a little lack of stamina, I've been feeling great! This is my second week back at work, and things are going well. My second round of chemo is this Friday, so I'll be home again next week dealing with the side effects, which I hope will be as tolerable as the first round. Fingers crossed!

Bounce Back

My dear husband took me to the lab today for my blood draw, and while we waited for the results, we grabbed a little lunch at a local taqueria -- a fun diversion. The lab results showed that my immune system was back up and running, so off to the office I went for an afternoon meeting I was hoping to make. After a couple of hours at the office, I was ready to head home.

Thank goodness my white blood cell counts are through the roof, because I'm in dire need of germ fighting reinforcements. I seem to have picked up a little cold bug yesterday and the sniffly, sneezing runny nose needs to be quashed! If it wasn't for this cold, I'd be feeling pretty great. I'm hoping that a little ibuprofen and an early night will have me back in the pink and ready for a whole day at work.

I'm expecting the next couple of weeks to be full of feeling good and getting back into regular routines. And then I'll be ready for round 2!