Quarantined after Chemosabe 6
Originally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 09/15/18
Over the past month all I have cared about was my platelet counts. Were they going to be too low? What could I do to help them get higher? Even my last post was about how elated I was that my number was high enough because that meant no fear of needing to postpone chemo again. But in typical cancer style one thing gets better and something else suddenly gets worse.
My nurse yesterday was Kathy. Chemo medicine is not mixed until about an hour or so before your appointment. Every infusion you get a call to confirm who your nurse will be, if your blood work has been given the good ahead, and to make sure you are still planning to be there. When Kathy called she asked if I was the type of patient that looked at her blood work. This was Kathy and my first time together so she doesn't know that I am a medicine journal junky at this point and should really go back to school to become a nurse. So I replied yes...duh. To which she responded then I had to have noticed how low my neutrophils were. Which I had but no one had ever been concerned about them, sooooo, I hadn't been concerned about them.
Neutrophils are white blood cells and they do most of the fighting off of germs. They are our internal army. We want our army to be strong. In order for them to be strong they need to have had time to mature, learn to fight, get educated on how to be effective. Right now I have two things going wrong. First, I have very low neutrophils which means what warriors are in my blood are few in number. Second, the warriors still in my blood are babies and not ready to fight much of anything. For chemo to be considered safe patients area allowed to receive treatment in an unhealthy range. Typically this is no lower than 1.5 or 1,500. In a healthy person they would be double or triple that number. I am at 1.3 or 1,300 before I went in for chemo yesterday.
Kathy explained that my Oncologist had approved me for chemo yesterday even though it was out of range by a significant amount and she wanted to talk to me about this when I came in for my infusions. At this point I was still feeling confident that I would be fine. So off Scotty and I went to get my drugs. But these nurses are no joke. When I say they care about their patients, they really care about us. Kathy went full mama bear and by they time she was done explaining why this was so serious I felt a little sick to my stomach. Scott was texting my mom the entire time so basically I am going to be put back into the bubble.
Essentially what was explained, in great detail, was that it probably wasn't the best decision to have chemo yesterday. Starting at 1.3, and that is when I am at my healthiest point since the last treatment, and prior to that chemo I was at a 1.5 (meaning my body is not recovering but becoming more and more worn down and weak) shows that my body is on a downward trend. Most likely I will get below 1.0 or 0.9. That level is pretty bad for scary infections or illnesses. One of the reasons for this is that since my levels are so low the white blood cells don't have enough warriors to send out signals to my body to tell it that it is sick. Think temperature, redness, puss, pain, etc. By the time one of them is free to go send out the signal I will be really, really sick.
So why did my ONC okay chemo right? My guess is because it is the last one of the medicines that are killing off all of my cells. After this one the next medicine doesn't kill off my cells in my bone marrow but targets specific HER2+ cancer cells. Ultimately it will give my body the break it desperately needs to start regenerating its army. I also think I might have been pushy about not wanting to postpone any more treatments. It is demoralizing to know that my body can't seem to work harder to be ready in the three week time frame. This might seem silly but statistically that is what most women are able to do. I don't want to be special and need more time damn it! Then I look at other patients that go every week or every other week and think gees their bodies can take it and be ready in half the time as mine! What the hell!!! It depresses me and makes me feel so weak. My brother John told my mom when I had to postpone treatment an extra week for round 5 that I need to stop comparing myself to other patients. Since my cancer was the most aggressive (highest graded tumors, HER2+, fastest growing) I am not getting a band-aid, I am getting an atomic bomb dropped into my body every three weeks. It does help me mentally to think of it more like that...but still cancer strips you of so much more than just your physical health.
Next questions is what do I do to prevent myself from getting sick for the next 6 or more weeks (because that is the minimum amount of time Kathy says I should be cautious)? Stay quarantined. I call it the bubble which is what Scott and my parents have done from the beginning really. Stay in doors, stay in my own home, don't use public bathrooms and if I have to bring bleach wipes and my own hand sanitizer, pretty much stay away from everyone and everything. Sounds crazy but most people don't die from Cancer or AIDS, they die because they have no more white blood cells to fight of another illness they get because the initial disease has weakened their immune system so badly. Always a nice reality check to hear as you are being pumped with said medicine....
As with every round Scotty was at my side. He got lucky for this round and we were put into a large private room. There was 3 large chairs and since we were alone Kathy told Scott he could move to the big chair. Those are pretty comfy chairs and I was teasing Scott the entire time I gave him minutes before he was going to be asleep. It took almost two hours because he was working but once I gave him the warm blanket they brought me (it was too much with the persistent hot flashes) he was out!
This man makes me smile so often and so big. I love him so much and will be forever grateful for him.