Erika's Treatment Update -- Week 56
Today was another long day at Stanford. I had labs in the morning and my doctor appointment wasn't until the afternoon so there was a long lapse in between. Fortunately Chris took the day off from work today to accompany me and we went to Stanford mall to kill some time.
My labs looked great (my white and red counts are both in the normal-high range from all the Procrit and Neupogen shots that my dad has been giving me) so we were able to proceed with chemo as planned. My liver numbers were finally all back to normal, my electrolytes are all still a little on the low side so I have to continue taking magnesium and potassium supplements along with a high sodium diet and my LDH was still rather elevated (although slightly lower than last time). The biggest issue discussed today was my weight and amount of training that I'm doing. Everyone seems to be concerned that I'm not maintaining my weight (although I'm very happy with it at the moment) and that I'm overdoing my training and need to take it easier. Since Monday I have been experiencing some lower back pain, hip pain, and calves pain to the point where today I was unable to walk. My doctor thinks it's related to my training and possibly the tapering of prednisone (I started tapering down to 15mg over the weekend). I was so happy that my BMT doctor had agreed for me to taper down, however now I think I might just go back up to 20mg and stick with that since my body is used to it and it's too painful to go through the side effects of lowering it. I don't want to sacrifice my training and not be able to do the events we have been looking forward to doing and have been training so hard for.
I also had a chest x-ray done today and the main tumor in my chest and lungs again looked slightly better than the one I had done back in June. I was able to actually see the results this time on a special computer and my doctor put up one of my x-rays from last October so I could compare it to the one from today and it's amazing the difference in size and how far I've come. The true test of course will be in two weeks when I have my full body CT scan to see if not only my chest is responding, but if the liver is as well. My scan is scheduled for the 26th and I see my oncologist again on the 27th so I'm hoping to get the results then (it will be a very nervous day for me).
Below is a picture of Chris and I with the city in the background when we did our long walk in SF this past weekend. We were heading back from the Golden Gate bridge to the Ferry Building. It was cloudy at the time, but it turned out to be a nice day aftewards.
My labs looked great (my white and red counts are both in the normal-high range from all the Procrit and Neupogen shots that my dad has been giving me) so we were able to proceed with chemo as planned. My liver numbers were finally all back to normal, my electrolytes are all still a little on the low side so I have to continue taking magnesium and potassium supplements along with a high sodium diet and my LDH was still rather elevated (although slightly lower than last time). The biggest issue discussed today was my weight and amount of training that I'm doing. Everyone seems to be concerned that I'm not maintaining my weight (although I'm very happy with it at the moment) and that I'm overdoing my training and need to take it easier. Since Monday I have been experiencing some lower back pain, hip pain, and calves pain to the point where today I was unable to walk. My doctor thinks it's related to my training and possibly the tapering of prednisone (I started tapering down to 15mg over the weekend). I was so happy that my BMT doctor had agreed for me to taper down, however now I think I might just go back up to 20mg and stick with that since my body is used to it and it's too painful to go through the side effects of lowering it. I don't want to sacrifice my training and not be able to do the events we have been looking forward to doing and have been training so hard for.
I also had a chest x-ray done today and the main tumor in my chest and lungs again looked slightly better than the one I had done back in June. I was able to actually see the results this time on a special computer and my doctor put up one of my x-rays from last October so I could compare it to the one from today and it's amazing the difference in size and how far I've come. The true test of course will be in two weeks when I have my full body CT scan to see if not only my chest is responding, but if the liver is as well. My scan is scheduled for the 26th and I see my oncologist again on the 27th so I'm hoping to get the results then (it will be a very nervous day for me).
Below is a picture of Chris and I with the city in the background when we did our long walk in SF this past weekend. We were heading back from the Golden Gate bridge to the Ferry Building. It was cloudy at the time, but it turned out to be a nice day aftewards.
posted by Erika @ 10:09 PM
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