Back On Chemo

Tuesday evening I had my labs drawn again to see if my counts recovered enough to start chemo again. My hickman was acting up again and didn't want to draw blood, but after several attempts we were finally able to get a successful draw. Wednesday I saw my nurse practioner and oncologist. I always enjoy seeing both of them so much as they're the nicest people ever and care about me so much (more than any other doctor I've had). They always call me their "VIP" patient :) My counts were all good enough to start back on the Procarbazine. My doctor wants me to take it for 10 days instead of 14 days and take two weeks off in between. Hopefully this won't affect my counts so much so we won't have to keep delaying my treatments. I'm scheduled to see them again on August 16th and I'll have my next CT scan on August 21st.

Work has been very busy again. My boss has been out the last two weeks so I feel like I've been doing double the work. Fortunately, I've been able to get away from my desk for about 15-30min each afternoon to walk around the Oracle campus. It's very pleasant to walk around the lake, take in the scenery, and feed the geese that are all around.

We haven't worked on the house for a few weeks now. We got some estimates from contractors for putting in the bamboo floor and the sheet rock and they were a lot higher than we anticipated and way out of our budget, so we're looking into getting a second opinion.

Anniversaries

These coming weeks I will be having some major anniversaries:

• July 19th - 4 years since my diagnosis with NHL
• July 22nd - 3 years since my 1st BMT
• August 8th - 2 years since my 2nd BMT

It's hard to believe that it's been 4 years since I've been battling with this disease. It's actually closer to 5 years since my tumor was growing many months prior to being diagnosed. I feel like I've been dealing with chemo and all the challenges that cancer patients are faced with for most of my life. I know many people think that I live a pretty normal life considering the circumstances, however I don't feel that is the case. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't deal with some challenge, whether it's physical or emotional.

I must admit that many positive things have come out of my diagnosis. For one I have become a stronger person emotionally. If anything, dealing with the loss of my mom has been much harder than dealing with my disease. There isn't a day that goes by that she's not on my mind. I have also become a lot stronger when dealing with medical issues. Before being diagnosed the thought of having a blood test was terrifying, now it's a daily routine for me. One thing that I don't consider good, is how I'm a lot less tolerant of people that don't take care of themselves and complain about things that are meaningless. Every day I hear someone complain about how miserable they are at work, how they're overweight, how they don't get enough sleep, etc...yet they don't do anything about it. I don't think they realize how easy they have it compared to someone dealing with a life threatening disease.

High fevers, low platelets

The fevers have been continuing since my last post. After seeing the infectious disease doctor I thought things were improving, but I'm back to feeling miserable again. The last week I've had fevers every single day (regardless of whether I take prednisone or not). I usually have to take Tylenol every 4-6 hours to keep them controlled and so that I can tolerate being at work. Today I felt so miserable that I wasn't able to go into the office and had to work from home.

I did see my oncologist today for my monthly visit. She was concerned about the fevers so she ordered another set of blood cultures, which I had done this afternoon along with my Zometa infusion. They wanted to also give me some fluids through IV since my blood pressure was very low (77/54), but I refused and said I would drink a lot instead. I hate getting any type of fluids through IV because they make me feel really puffy and bloated for a few days. I also won't be able to do my two weeks of chemo since my platelets were very low. I will have to take a two week break and let them recover. She did mention once again that she was impressed with my last CT and the response that my tumor had to the radiation. The brain/head CT that I had done also came back normal.

The plan for now is to go back in a week to get my blood checked and to see the infectious disease doctor once again. I just wish the fevers would go away as they're really starting to impact my quality of life.