Valerie got started with her second cycle of ESHAP this week. Even though there was a slight bump in the road she is on her way and things are moving right along. Also it looks like the stem-cell transplant is on the horizon and hopefully things will get really exciting in the next few weeks.
On Monday, she went to Mayo to get her first infusion of the week but after her pre-chemo blood test the doctor decided to postpone chemo because her neutrophils came back at .99. She needed to be at a 1 but she was one hundredths of a point off. The sucky part was that this decision was made AFTER she received her high-dose methylprednisolone (steroid) pre-med.
She came home and immediately hit the couch. She says that the steroid side-effects are worse than the chemo side-effects. Usually the plan when counts come back low is to give her a Neupogen injection but Dr. Reeder did not want us to do it. He wanted to see if her counts came up without the use of the shot and that had me very concerned. Mary, her transplant coordinator has already scheduled Valerie's slew of stem cell related appointments and more than a 2 day delay would have thrown it off. Nervous time!
Tuesday morning came and she drags herself back up to Mayo after a sleepless night with her amazing friend and Arizona mom, Miriam, for another blood test and hopefully chemo. Somehow her neutrophils count shot up to a 6.19 with a total white blood cell count of 7.5! They had to retest. Divine intervention??? Maybe so.
She completed her chemo infusion for the day and will have to go everyday until Saturday. Unfortunately with the combination of chemo and steroids, she had another sleepless night this time with severe nausea but she is well into the next step in the process.
Here is part of an email from her stem cell nurse/coordinator Mary. "Dr Reeder told me that you're starting chemo today, 5/20 and he wanted to plan to move you forward to transplant off this cycle. He wants you to get a PET scan ~ 6/6 and see him 6/7...and move forward from there if ok." I don't want to be too presumptuous but that sounds to me like Val will move forward with the stem cell transplant in June but with all the factors in play, plans can change.
Thank you all for the support. We couldn't do this without all of you. I'll end this update with a Facebook post by Valerie from last night.
"Wow. I'm laying here. Not able to sleep, honestly suffering through how I physically feel right now. Nights are the worst. Nothing else to do or think about except that I often just want to sleep. Sleep is a form of mercy. This is a video about Zach. He died a few days ago at 19 years old. This 20 minute video inspires me and, if I'm honest, scares me too. I like the perspective that cancer is a gift that forces you to face the reality of life and to just live happily through it because though someone has cancer, that IS their life and they only get to live it once." Click here for the movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment