One shot, two shots, three shots, floor!

Ok, so I’m not actually doing alcoholic shots though that would be fun.  I haven’t had a drink since November of 2012, not even on my wedding day.  For the wedding I got no sugar added organic apple cider, it was actually pretty tasty.

Anyway, I had a pretty rough week last week.  It was actually the culmination of a couple rough weeks brought on by low white blood cell counts causing me to have to skip a chemo treatment and have more of those ugly mouth sores as well as low energy levels.

 Last week I was just exhausted every day.  Monday I went in for treatment and my counts were still just a little too low for treatment so my oncologist had me briskly walk around the hospital for thirty minutes to see if it would stimulate things so my count would go up enough for treatment.  I really thought she was joking when she told me to walk around the hospital then get my blood work done again.  If that’s all it takes, why don’t they have everyone do that before blood work?  I guess they expect it to only raise it a little bit, if at all.  My level when I got to the hospital was 925 and you need 1000 to get treatment.  I did my brisk walk and ran up and down the stairs with my mom and Sean for the required half an hour and a miracle occurred – I didn’t raise it by 75, I raised it by 400!  I was happily able to get treatment and was told that if I am very careful about germs I can go back to the gym.  YAY!

Tuesday brought on more exhaustion and news that I now have hypothyroidism.  Really?  Now I have high blood pressure and hypothyroidism as collateral damage from the treatment.  I never would’ve had either of these had I not gotten cancer.  It was disappointing news to say the least.  They called in my new prescription and told me I need to take this new pill at 5 am then not eat for two hours.  Yes, 5 am!  UGH!  Such is life though now and at least they caught it.  They said the new pill would help to increase my energy and my mood which were both being brought down by the thyroid issue. 

I also started my Neupogen shots on Tuesday.  These shots boost your white blood cell count so I won’t have to rely on walking the hospital and running the stairs before treatment or missing treatment if it doesn’t rise enough due to the walk.  The first week (each day Tuesday through Friday) of the shots must be done at the hospital and then after that they were going to let Sean do them at our house.  Leaving work early each day to take the hour drive to the hospital each day was tiring as well and just added to my icky mood.  The first day they showed Sean how to do the shot then the rest of the week they supervised him while he did it.  Thank goodness for him because I just don’t think I could do it myself.

Later in the week I found out another young patient in a triple negative breast cancer Facebook group I’m in lost her battle.  It is always so sad to hear of another patient passing, especially someone so young.  You always see yourself in that person too.  It causes you to wonder why one and not the other.  What separates us?  What saves one and not another?  How long will I be saved?  Will I be cured one day?  Will it be due to a miracle?  Will they find a cure and save us all?  I really hope they do.

Thankfully this past weekend my mood and energy started to improve dramatically.  Saturday night and Sunday morning I started to get some of the bone pain that they said to expect with the shots but it wasn’t enough to dampen my mood.  I’m just feeling so much better generally and am happy that I won’t have daily visits to the hospital this week.  Yesterday (Monday) I had chemo and my counts were above 4000!  That’s in the normal range!  NORMAL!  That was the first time in months that I was in the normal range, even if it was the bottom of normal. 

Treatment went smoothly and I even had some company. My first guest was a writer from the hospital’s magazine,  “The Oncolyte.”  They were interviewing me for a story to run in the next issue.  I spoke with her for a while until my Benadryl started to kick in and I wasn’t quite as lucid as I normally am.  After a nice nap my friend Jill was at the hospital waiting to get her treatment.  She wasn’t hooked up to her IV yet so she came to chat with me while I finished up my chemo.

It was a nice day at the hospital and I was really feeling good for a change.  I must admit the actual act of being at the hospital and getting the chemo infusion is not a chore.  It’s really not so bad.  There’s tv, lunch, nap time.  I’m getting my medicine.  I’m healing.  What’s better than that when it comes to cancer?  Well, maybe a cure.