Wow. Well, the doctor warned me that this would be a rough stretch of treatment...
We're on day 28 of 57 of misnamed "month of hell," so we've officially reached the halfway point. The bad news is we're about to restart the cycle of drugs that decimated my blood counts and knocked me down pretty hard (I apologize for not posting for such a stretch). The good news is that there are no spinal taps in the second half of this stretch (as of last week I had had 4 spinal taps w/ chemo in 22 days, and these make me notoriously fuzzy-brained and quiet.)
An Update:
Prior to leaving for last week's appointment, my Mum turned to me and in a chipper voice said "oh look, this week you only get vincristine and a spinal tap!" This made me laugh as it's a bit like saying "Oh look, this week you only get a punch in the gut and a kick to the groin!"
I like to make fun, but the truth is that I myself got rather excited when I saw this as well. In fact, because I'm in the middle of such a heavy cycle of drugs, I've privately referred to this week as my "vincristine vacation," because while I'm still quite out of it, I'm at least on my feet and can enjoy a good book, music, or the company of others.
I'm eternally grateful that this little "break" in treatment came during a February thaw here in Madison. Yesterday I just sat out on my porch for a while, and it felt great to breathe in some moist air and feel the sunshine on my face.
Last week, I was excited to see that my platelet count had jumped up to 167, within the normal range! After the bloody adventure a couple of weeks ago, I've decided that I much prefer having more than a few of those little buggers.
Unfortunately, I can't say the same of my white blood cell count which had fallen to 0.4. I guess the whole purpose is to kill these guys off though, so I'll deal with it.
Well, tomorrow will find me back in the clinic for another round of cytoxin, one of the notoriously strong chemo drugs. I will also begin taking another chemo drug orally (mercaptopurine-- sounds like a cat food, doesn't it?) for 14 days and will inject myself with another (cytarabine) for 2 stretches of 4 days. Together, these should once again decimate my blood counts, so as many good vibes as you can send would be very much appreciated.
The good news is that with any luck, this should be the hardest part of treatment and it should get less intense from here.
Take Care,
Sam
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
9 comments:
I've missed hearing from you and glad you felt like writing.
Lots of Love your way,
Aunt V
Glad to hear that your still holding up OK and were able to enjoy some of the heat wave. I got all excited about a potential response we could have issued about a major transmission project announcement, purportedly to carry green power, that was based on some very optimistic assumptions about building coal plants. It took Mark and Ryan slightly longer to tell me that any media response would be completely out of the demands of public consumption. It would have taken you one second. But if you do get interested in hearing about the finer points of electrical generation expansion modeling I can suggest some reading materials....
Cheers and stay in there!
Pete
Ahhh Dude....I'm sorry!
Those chemo's SUCK...it ALL sucks. I tell myself all the time, "Hopefully we will only have to do this once in life and then we are done."
I pray that is true for you as well.
We are back in the hospital...we get some of your same chemo (vincristine and cytoxan) plus some other doozies.
Been thinking about you and was hoping I would hear from you soon.
Praying that you stay well while your counts are down (they make us wear a mask ALL the time)...and that this next 30 days or so will FLY by and healing will follow.
Love to you-
Candace
Sam,
I wondered if you were able to take one of your walks outside yesterday. So I'm glad to hear you were able to get outside and enjoy the sun! Good vibes coming your way the next few days :)
Ashley
Hi Sam>>>So glad to hear from you. I have missed you. I'm glad you are feeling a little better. My wish is that this next month goes really fast and this bad time will be a little better for you. Grandpa says hi and we miss you so much. We will be leaving for home April 1st and see you a few days later. My prayers are for you everyday. G.G. We love you
Sam,
A ton of good vibes to you today. You keep calling your doctor's reference to these 57 days as "the month from hell" as a misnomer. It might not be. A typical martian month is 55.7 earth days. But, on Mars, this is leap year. So, February has 57 days. Find some comfort in knowing that your doc is correct, it's just that he is from Mars.
Keep at it. Remember what Gus Grissom said to Gordo Cooper before blast off; "Don't screw the pooch."
We've missed hearing from you, but I CERTAINLY understand what it feels like, just trying to make it through the day.
I believe we are getting a lot of the very same drugs. I am getting Cytoxan right now (6 doses in 3 days), Vincristine next, then Adriamycin. I also get Rituxan before every round. My intrathecals are Methotrexate and Cytarabine, and I also have an IV round of those same two drugs.
We deserve honorary oncology degrees, eh? See our blogs for some lovely brain intrathecal shots! Back vs. brain-- you make the call! I'll take NEITHER!
Hang in there... lots of love and support surrounds you. You WILL make it through this.
Hang in there bud. Good thoughts and prayers coming your way.
Sam,
We sure miss you at work. Please know that we read your blog for any news and hang on every word. We all admire your spirit and strength and send you our best during this month from hell. We know you're going to come out of this stronger than ever. Also know that you're inspiring us all to be the best we can be--and in the case of Taglia, that means not sounding so painfully wonky--though I can see from an earlier blog entry he has a little ways to go on that (I mean, faulty assumptions in a report on transmission lines as a PRESS hook?! I don't need to have your smarts to bat that one away.)
Hope to hear more from you soon!
Mark
Post a Comment