The Other Shoe

We kind of thought the first session of chemo went too smoothly.

Started out emotionally bad on Friday when there was a chance of not getting the scheduled second session. We were so excited by how high Donna’s white blood cell count was last week after the neupogn shots, but as it turns out now they are saying it was some sort of anomaly and it was probably only 1/2 of the 11.9 the test showed. This Friday it was 3.5 (4.1-10 is the normal range) and her total blood count was 1500 (the low border for administering chemo.) I’m not sure how long this doctor has been practicing, but he seemed genuinely flustered by Donna’s tears, at the possibility of not getting the chemo. You see she has geared herself up for doing this in a certain time frame and does not want to have to extend it for any reason. Eventually, she got her poisons.

Saturday morning we went back to to the cancer center to get a shot of neulasta (the long lasting version of neupogen) and in the early afternoon we made a grocery shopping trip which were just about all the excitement that Donna could stand. Most of the rest of the day consisted of laying around on the couch with a heating pad on her midsection to soothe the painful stomach and a wet washcloth on her head to ease the headache. By late evening she could not stay comfortable in any position on the couch or bed, but did seem to feel better when standing. So we took a slow walk around our mile long block and then we went for a nice little 25 mile top down drive. Both were nice, but temporary relief from the discomfort, so when we got home, Donna showered, took a compazine and we went to bed.

Sunday morning started early and badly. Donna felt horrible and couldn’t get comfortable at all. I think if we had a gun in the house she might have asked to be put out of her misery. Finally around 8 o’clock she felt good enough to have a craving for a pecan waffle and some scattered and smothered hash browns from Waffle house. While I was gone she tried to vomit, but had nothing to throw up. By the time I got back she told me to stay away as just the smell of the food was making her sick. I got her to take one of the Zofran samples and in about 15 minutes she sat down at the table and managed to eat a quarter of the waffle and about the same of the potatoes. By lunch the stomach issues had been quieted to a dull roar, but then the bone aches from the neulasta kicked in. Poor girl. I think because her blood count was low to begin with for this chemo, she got hit with the side effects a little harder.

Because of that too, instead of trying to be a hero, Donna is going to only work 5 hour days this week instead of putting in a whole eight, hopefully this will help dealing with the upsets and aches of cancer treatment. Let’s all see if she can do it.