Drs appointment today

Much to my disappointment, I was told today by dr. Verma, who is replacing Dr. Nicholas while he is on holidays, that the chances of my tumor shrinking were really slim as they are using a children's protocol and they can't give me enough drugs to match up to an adults protocol as it would kill me. He said the best we could hope for at the moment is a stable tumor. I retorted by asking him why they were even putting me through this?? And he said because there's always the slim chance it would shrink. My thoughts are still the same.... Why would you put someone through all this if nothing is going to change??? Ugh. I'm utterly disgusted and praying that he is wrong.... I have chemo tomorrow, Thursday and Friday and will have a ct scan on the 23rd to see what has been going on in there and see Dr. Nicholas on the 30th to follow up. If there are no changes, they are thinking they will have to change the chemo protocol. Not willing to extend this any longer than need be, depending on my options I will ask the risks of immediate surgery and make a decision from there.

Hospitalized

So we know chemo is doing it's work. I spent from March 29th until April 3rd hospitalized for infection and extremely low blood counts.

When I arrived at the hospital on Thursday evening, I had a fever of 38.6 and chills like you wouldn't believe as well as barely any strength to even walk into the hospital. Got wrapped up in 4 of those wonderful heated hospital blankets and finally got the chills out. When my blood work returned, I was severely anemic, my platelets were low and my white blood cells were basically non existent and was told that I was being admitted. Started off the evening with a transfusion of platelets and 2 units of red blood cells. Then I got a magnesium IV, followed by IV antibiotics every 6 hours. In between all this I was kept on IV hydration with potassium. I'll tell you this, I was scared. Not a fun experience. Got set up in my room on Friday morning with a very lovely room-mate who was receiving in patient chemo and she left the morning I got released as well. Was nice to have a friendly room-mate. Definitely helped the time pass by. By Saturday, I was considered severely anemic again and received another 2 units of red blood cells. By Sunday, my white blood cells had finally rose to acceptable levels and I was taken completely off IV, hydration and all. Was happy to be free of THE POLE. :) Got switched over to oral antibiotics. Usually, they release you 24 hours after you are switched to oral antibiotics but my platelets were still on the decline so they kept me an extra day. Bloodwork came back Tuesday and platelets were still very low but on the rise so I got released in the afternoon.Got pain management finally under control while I was hospitalized and finally on a medication that works very well. Might have to up the dosage a little as I am taking the breakthrough pain med every 4 hours.

The hardest part of this whole experience is that children under 12 are not allowed on the oncology floor so I missed out on the kids a lot :( Was hard to be away from them for so long. But I know that in the end, once this is all over I will be able to make up all the lost time with the munchkins :)

So for now, I will enjoy my Easter weekend feeling pretty good and healthy right now. Tuesday is back to the oncologist to see what my blood counts are like. If they are back up to par, then it the beginning of Round 3 of chemo. This time it's Cyclophosphamide for 1 hr on Day 1 and Etoposide for 1 hr on Day 1,2 and 3.

That's all for now and sorry for the lack of updates. Health is usually not well enough to sit in front of the computer for very long