Mar. 16: Chemo #6

Today was chemo #6. It was a little unusual.

For the first time, my blood taken right after I checked in showed that I was a bit anemic. If it tests TOO anemic, I can’t have chemo, and so far I’ve been lucky not to have been turned away. Today was the first day my cell counts fell outside the acceptable range, but it was so close, apparently, that Dr. O said to go ahead with chemo.

Dr. O has decided that we’ll do two more treatments before we order another scan and see if OJ’s still hanging around then. If he is, “we’ll change courses”—I have no idea yet what that means. Dr. O was actually very encouraging about OJ’s current size; she admitted she’d like to have seen a bigger change, but estimates that there’s only about 15 percent of the tumor left compared to when we first discovered him in November, and that’s nothing to complain about. Fair enough.

Another thing that made chemo different today was that Victor and I went by ourselves. I had asked a friend of mine to join us but she never got back to me and I didn’t want to pressure her. So, while I was bummed that she wasn’t there, it wasn’t a big bummer to be by ourselves. I had hoped to nap or read, but there were an awful lot of interruptions and too much commotion to really relax in the chemo room. Instead, I relied on magazines and headphones to make the time fly. It worked, but it was more boring than usual.

We didn’t get home until after 4 p.m., and I was exhausted. Usually I spend most of my day resting after treatment, but tonight I had a PTO meeting to attend. By about 5 p.m. I decided I just wasn’t going to make it to the meeting. I felt like I was about to drop, so I went to bed. I hate missing PTO meetings, but it’s embarrassing-er to fall asleep during them.

What next? If all goes as planned, these are the next few milestones:

• Tuesday, April 6 – Chemo #7 (This one’s yours, Sherilee!)
• Tuesday, April 27 – Chemo #8
• Tuesday, May 4 – PET/CT scan

Sometime after the PET/CT we’ll meet with Dr. O again to go over the results, and either “change courses,” as she said, or start post-chemo treatment. I guess. I really don’t know. But I’ll do it.

When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something’s suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.  ~Barbara Bloom