No More Predisone - Hurray!
Yesterday after work I went in to get my labs drawn as usual. Thankfully, my Hickman behaved and the nurse was able to draw blood pretty easily. I'm really glad that I had my labs drawn last night, because the lab machine was down all day today and people that had labs drawn today were not able to get results. This of course caused major delays so I didn't see my oncologist until two hours after my scheduled appointment.
My NP was out of town so I didn't get to see her which was pretty dissapoiting. She always has great stories for me and we usually chat for a good 20-30 minutes. I did get to see my oncologist though and she said my counts all looked great. I think cutting the chemo back to 10 days instead of 14 days made a big difference. We're going to continue on that schedule so that I don't have to delay anymore treatments. I asked her about the reasoning for me still having to take prednisone and she said there really was no reason for me to continue on it since it's been over a year since my bout with GVHD. This means no more predisone, I can stop taking it immediately....yeah!! I've been waiting for the okay to get off of it for over a year!! The drawback of course will be that my fevers will get worse since the prednisone tends to control them or make them slightly better. I would rather take more Tylenol and even risk feeling more miserable over taking prednsione. It's definitely by far the drug I hate most...more than any chemo I've ever had to take. Hopefully I will be able to stay off of it and my bone loss will decrease, my muscle loss will stop, and my pot belly will start to go away.
This coming Monday I have my CT scan. As usual I'm terrified and will probably be very anxious the following days until I get results. I've been coughing a lot the last two weeks and have also been having some shortness of breath and slight chest pain, which is very worrisome. I'll either call in on Wednesday to get the results from my NP or get the results from my infectious disease doctor when I see him next week.
Work has still been pretty busy. Today I worked from home and tomorrow I will go into the office in the morning and take the afternoon off since my friend from Japan is visiting.
My NP was out of town so I didn't get to see her which was pretty dissapoiting. She always has great stories for me and we usually chat for a good 20-30 minutes. I did get to see my oncologist though and she said my counts all looked great. I think cutting the chemo back to 10 days instead of 14 days made a big difference. We're going to continue on that schedule so that I don't have to delay anymore treatments. I asked her about the reasoning for me still having to take prednisone and she said there really was no reason for me to continue on it since it's been over a year since my bout with GVHD. This means no more predisone, I can stop taking it immediately....yeah!! I've been waiting for the okay to get off of it for over a year!! The drawback of course will be that my fevers will get worse since the prednisone tends to control them or make them slightly better. I would rather take more Tylenol and even risk feeling more miserable over taking prednsione. It's definitely by far the drug I hate most...more than any chemo I've ever had to take. Hopefully I will be able to stay off of it and my bone loss will decrease, my muscle loss will stop, and my pot belly will start to go away.
This coming Monday I have my CT scan. As usual I'm terrified and will probably be very anxious the following days until I get results. I've been coughing a lot the last two weeks and have also been having some shortness of breath and slight chest pain, which is very worrisome. I'll either call in on Wednesday to get the results from my NP or get the results from my infectious disease doctor when I see him next week.
Work has still been pretty busy. Today I worked from home and tomorrow I will go into the office in the morning and take the afternoon off since my friend from Japan is visiting.
posted by Erika @ 9:55 PM
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