Update

          This post is going to be short. I'm pretty sick right now and hardly have any energy to do anything.

Monday night I started feeling pretty sick. Nauseated and spiked a temp. It ranged between 99.7 and 101.2. From past experiences, I know a fever while on chemo is not good.

Justin called Dr. Vukov's and Dr. Carpenter's and the radiation was put on hold yesterday until I went in for bloodwork and my weekly appointment.

Well, my counts are still pretty bad. Even worse than last week. That is one big reason I'm feeling so crummy.

White Blood Cells
0.53 (normal range is 4.26 - 9.66)

Red Blood Cells
2.76 (normal range is 4.20 - 6.02)

Hemoglobin
9.5 (normal range is 11.5 - 16.0)

Platelets
89 (normal range is 133- 382)


Between the brain radiation and my extremely low white count I am completely exhausted. Actually, exhausted is an understatement.

I went in yesterday and was put on an antibiotic (Ciprofloxacin) to get this fever gone but they don't think I actually have an infection going on anywhere. They think that since I'm having a fever it's from my body trying to fight off anything and everything that is trying to invade my body right now since I basically have zilch for infection fighters.

I also have no appetite for anything. Nothing sounds good. I'm trying to force myself to eat.

Same thing happened when I was in the hospital from Dec. to Jan. and I lost my appetite and ended up losing 48 lbs. in one months time.

I've pretty much been sequestering myself to our bedroom to rest as much as possible and to avoid germs (pretty tough with a 2 year old and a 4 year old running around)! But Justin's been fantastic with letting me rest as much as possible.

I was also given a shot of Neulasta in my stomach to hopefully boost my white blood cells. Hoping it works!!


Okay, longer than I planned but I wanted to give everyone an update.


4 radiation treatments down, 8 more to go!

Appointment and Mask

     I went in yesterday and had my normal appointment and saw the NP, Laura. My appointment went well but my counts weren't the best. My white count was 0.71 and my platelets were 141. As she put it, my counts are in the gutter (due to my most recent spinal tap and the oral chemo pills I'm taking at home). Because of my white count being low I just need to be extra cautious since I don't have any infection fighters right now, so pretty much wherever I go that is public I have to wear a mask.

They had no problems whatsoever getting good blood flow from my port. I'm so glad! They drew blood and then flushed it with heparin and when the NP went to look at it it wasn't sticking up near as much as it had been. But I still just need to keep a close eye on it.

I knew it was about time to start the radiation therapy. So after my appointment we left there and then Justin had a doctors appointment himself and then we went to Methodist. I had a cat scan done and then had the mask made for the therapy. This morning the radiation oncologist, Dr. Carpenter, reviewed the images and then gave me the go ahead to start tomorrow (they weren't sure they were going to be able to proceed with starting this week because of my low counts). So I go in tomorrow at 2 o'clock. I'll have a total of 12 sessions. 2 days this week, M-F next week, and then M-F the following. Each session is only supposed to last about 15 minutes.

But I'm a nervous wreck!  The mask molding/fitting was terrifying. It is put on wet and dries to your face within a matter of minutes, but it just gets tighter and tighter. At one point of the whole process I could feel my heart pounding through my face - I felt so scared and just wanted to throw my arms up and be done. But I didn't. I know this is just one more thing I need to do. At one point, the radiation tech came over the speaker to talk to me and ask me to turn my head a little to the left and I tried but there was just no way - the mask was dry and rock hard and also bolted to the table. Talk about feeling scared!!

I wanted to have some pictures for this blog so I asked Justin to take some for me.

So here you go. The "pillow" I'm laying on was specially molded for my head also. If you want to see larger pictures, you can click on them and they will enlarge.

A radiation tech, Bob, taking pictures also for their records. He was so nice and made the entire process much easier!

All marked and ready for Thursday.