I'm Down With P.E.T. (Yea You Know Me)

So the other big update is that the big update will come soon. (Cryptic, huh?) Basically we've decided that everything hinges upon my upcoming PET scan, with a couple of possibilities thereafter.

First is the potential for a clear result, meaning the cancer is gone or basically gone, in which case we will finish at 6 cycles and call it a day.

Second is the potential that there may be still, more cancer than my doctor is comfortable with, in which case he will run another two cycles of chemo. Additionally, he has indicated that he may, for prophylactic purposes, run a round of intrathecal chemo, which involves injecting chemo directly into the spinal cord to prevent the cancer from spreading into the nervous system, although this type of therapy is done completely outpatient.

I'm not going to lie... I'm not entirely thrilled about this, and when I first heard this news I had a rough several hours. But I tried to keep it in perspective that I'm so lucky to be alive and to be responding so well to treatment, and now I'm more or less at peace with these options. I definitely have a bit of scanxiety, though. :)

More to come soon...

Day 10: The Sickening

Well, to those of you who have been following me, you've probably noticed some sizeable gaps between posts lately. Candidly, the past 3 to 4 weeks have been pure hell. Although the first two cycles went swimmingly, the periods following cycle 3 and cycle 4 saw me get progressively sicker as I left the hospital. By about a week out, I was in such bad shape that I ended up back in the hospital for about 5 days each time. Basically my life had turned into an episode of House, M.D.

But after noticing that each time my white blood cell count was around 0.7, my doctor ended up with a diagnosis of neutropenic enterocolitis, which is to say a massive colitis flareup brought on opportunistically by my near nonexistent white blood cell count. I'm very lucky, as this condition can be fatal if not treated, but it's also easily prevented. The simple solution is for me to boost my WBC count through the heaviest concentration of my chemo with regular shots of Neupogen. For me, this is through day 10--meaning 9 days after the start of my chemo--which is also the day when my chemo reaches it's peak concentration. After this point my body can take care of the rest.

But there is a very serious lesson here for chemo patients, and especially anyone who also has another condition like me: know when your chemo is at it's strongest and expect that if you have any other conditions that they will be exacerbated during this period. Fingers crossed, I'm feeling loads better, so hopefully I can get back to a regular schedule now. Stay tuned!

Whirlwind Couple of Weeks

Wow. So to my readers, I apologize for the long delay in content. It has been a crazy couple of weeks that has made my life something of an episode of House. I will post more details in the coming days.