My Onc Visit, a retrospective

This is a blog entry I started last Friday while I was getting juiced. I didn't finish and then I left the land of the living for several days. It had some good info so I added the last paragraph and decided to post retroactively. For more recent happenings read the next one I posted earlier today.

We are live at Camp Chemo, which happens to be a perfect place to blog because I am stuck in place with not much else to do. I’ll save my movie for later when I get fed up with the snoring coming from the cubby next to me. All is going well. The only different thing today is that I’m getting a flu shot. Unfortunately, I can’t use my port for that too. It has to be injected into muscle. I thought my port was the answer to everything painful.

I saw the onc today and she is pleased with the progress. The nodes I can touch are fingertip sized now. Isn’t that great!? One more treatment and in theory the cancer should be gone. Another month and a half and I will get a PET to confirm that there is no cancer left. Then the following three months are security chemo to make sure the cancer stays gone. I also realized that I am in the single digit countdown now – 9 more treatments to go. Hey, is that a light up yonder beyond that tunnel?

I asked Dr. Chase about white blood cell counts and got the scoop. Before chemo started my WC (white count) was 8.1. The week after chemo was 4.2, then 3.something, then 2.4, and today is 2.5. They are low and will stay low, but not dangerous. The dangerous point is 1.0 or less.

More good news is that Kelly Kane is officially a Hodgkin’s SURVIVOR. Her final scan came back clean and she is now pronounced in remission. Congrats to her! Her blog is listed as a link to the left.

Some other news, neither good nor bad, is that my hair is falling out fast and furious now. Showering takes twice as long because of hair management. I have to collect as much hair as I can for trash disposal so it doesn’t clog the drain every shower. I would have good use for a pocket lint roller if there was such a thing as I leave hair on headrests, jacket collars, my pillow, and, well, just about everything. Something kinda funny was seeing all the strands flying around like a ticker tape parade when I was blow drying my hair. Only funny until I looked at the floor after all calmed down. Grumble, grumble about the clean up. Thank God I got a haircut and the strands are shorter, yet still not short enough for my strained patience. I see Haircut Part II in the near future. I said I’d wait until it’s noticeably thinner but I didn’t say to whom. Dennis and I concur that we notice; although, no one else would. Perhaps when my sister is here in a couple weeks a fun activity would be to shave my head. Are you up for it sis? Anyone want to be an accessory and have clippers I can borrow? - C