Erika's Treatment Update -- Week 37

Hi everyone!

Today was quite a long day for me at Stanford. What was supposed to be a normal day of getting chemo and seeing my doctor's turned into some unexpected events instead.

Last week I noticed some pink rash like spots on my leg and arms so I went to Stanford so my nurse practioner could take a look at them. They took some blood tests and she circled the spots so we could keep an eye on them. The spots seemed to get better as the days went by, however my blood tests showed some very abnormal liver levels (about 10x higher than what they were the week before and much higher than the normal). The concern was that the chemo I'm getting was possibly affecting my liver worse than expected, a sign of graft vs host disease, or even the possibility of my lymphoma spreading. They repeated the tests today when I went in and thankfully they were back to normal (they're not sure what could have caused the elevated numbers or if it was simply a lab mistake). I'm going to have a full body CT scan on March 21st to make sure there's nothing funny going on that they might be missing out on. My chest x-ray today on the otherhand showed an improvement on the main mass, which is always nice to hear.

I was also seen by the head dermatologist today for the spots on my leg and they felt it was best to do a biopsy to rule out any type of infection or possibly the lymphoma spreading to my skin. After a painful dose of novacaine and a couple of stitches, I still managed to walk two miles tonight at the track training for the TNT walk team (I couldn't do more because of a nose bleed that wouldn't stop).

As for chemo today, that's another story...when my oncologist came in to see me I started shaking uncontrollably and had a fever (which I've been having on a daily basis) so they ended up doing all kinds of blood cultures from my cathether and arm and she felt it was best to admit me into the hospital for a couple of days. After much begging, Chris and I were able to convince her that it wasn't necessary for me to be admitted and that I would be much better off at home...she finally agreed. Unfortunately, they can't do chemo until the cultures and biopsy come back because it would be to risky to do if I have some sort of infection. Right now my chemo is on hold until this coming Monday pending everything comes back negative. I'm hoping to eventually get back to my Wednesday chemo schedule otherwise I probably won't be able to take my tap classes, which I was very much enjoying.

So it has definitely been a tough, unpredictable day, hopefully next week will bring some better news. My dad has booked a timeshare up in Tahoe for next weekend and Chris and I are looking forward to finally going up there so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everything will be better. I've been wanting so bad to go skiing this season!!