Happy Monday, everyone! After an excellent weekend with family and
friends I was actually looking forward to getting my chemo treatment on Tuesday.
The sooner each treatment comes is the sooner they'll be done and my recovery from it begins! But sometimes things will happen that could knock your treatments off track.
My doctor wants me to take a blood test before each treatment to ensure that
my blood counts (stuff like my red blood cells, hemocrit cells, etc.) are at
levels that would make it safe to give me the drugs needed for chemotherapy. If any of my levels are too low, it might result in having my treatments postponed and/or
additional precautions taken to get the levels up to a safe level. I took the
tests last Friday, like I did before the second treatment.
This time I got a call from one of the doctor's assistants saying that the doctor was concerned that my white blood cell count was showing up as low, and that she wants me to take another blood test tomorrow morning before she decides whether
it's safe to do the treatment tomorrow or re-schedule it for another date. I knew that while the drugs would kill any cancer cells inside me, they would also kill off
some of my body's good cells. That's why side effects from nausea to hair loss
happen. So instead of being sure of treatment I may have to wait a bit before treatment #3 happens.
I talked to a couple of sisters that have gone through chemo and asked about
this. Both of them had this happen to them. One said she had to have an
additional shot of medication to help her immune system build itself up after
EACH treatment, it was so low. The other just had this situation happen recently and needed a blood transfusion to build her up to continue her treatment. Needless to say, neither option sounds all that good to me.
When I mentioned this to my DH, he was mad, but after praying about it his
spirits were calmed. I just got off the phone with one of my sisters, and she
encouraged me to keep fighting, and do what I need to do to stay healthy.
For now, I pray that my WBC count is high enough to do the treatment as
planned. If it's still too low, hopefully I'll just be re-scheduled a bit
further out and give my body an chance to generate more white blood cells naturally. No needles, please!
Have a good evening, and STAY _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _!
"Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns.
Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together
for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ
displaces worry at the center of your life." -Philippians 4:6-7, The Message (MSG)
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