What Goes Up, Must Come Down

What a difference a week makes... Last week I was riding my steroid high, so excited that I was halfway through my chemo journey. The new treatment seemed to be doing okay, with the exception of riding the steroid roller-coaster. In order to keep any of the possible side effects of Taxol at bay, I get loaded up the day before with steroids. Then when they are pumping the poison in, they add a mix of more steroids and Benadryl. The plus side of all these steroids is that my appetite comes back for a few days, so I haven't lost any more weight, and food tastes good!

This week I noticed that I started feeling bit more sluggish than normal. I just chalked it up to the 100+ degree weather that we were having. Wednesdays I go for blood draws, just to check my numbers for a bunch of different things and to make sure my white and red blood cells aren't getting too low.  The results normally show up Wednesday evening. This week the rolling black outs due to the extreme heat delayed the results until late Thursday morning. I didn't think anything of it and started taking my steroids like I was told to do. Thursday afternoon the chemo doc's office called. It seems that my White Blood Cells count was practically non-existent. Chemo for Friday was canceled. Steroids were taken for nothing. The nurse asks me how I'm feeling, and I tell her fine. I was at work getting ready for a meeting. She couldn't believe it. I tried to beg her to not cancel the appointment, but she said that if we did the chemo I could end up in the hospital with a nasty infection. Okay, fine. 

Thursday night my body started trying to slow me down real fast. I think I was close to passing out twice, but I kept going because that is what I do. Finally, about 8pm I admitted defeat. I sat down on the couch and did nothing for a bit. For the first time ever, I was able to sleep through the night while my body was amped up on steroids. The hubs got up at 5am and I promptly went back to sleep until almost 9am. It has been slow moving day. I've been lightheaded a few times, but not as bad as Thursday night. My body is reminding me that my mind is no longer in control. 

I am so disappointed that we are now off my chemo schedule. They gave me a schedule, which meant that I had a plan. Now my plan is delayed a week, at least. Hopefully my white blood cells will cooperate the rest of the time and stay at a good level so I can continue. I hate that there is nothing that I can do to help improve the count. When I was on A&C they gave me a shot that I wore home that helped keep the white blood cells up. I'm not sure why they aren't doing it with the Taxol. I have an appointment with my chemo doc on Monday, so I will be asking if they can add that back in.

I know that it is silly to have goals that are attached to dates with chemo, but I need something to look forward to. My goal is to be done with chemo before Thanksgiving so I can have surgery before Christmas. I want to have the worst part of my cancer journey done and over with in 2022. I will still have to deal with radiation in 2023, but hopefully that will be a walk in the park compared to everything else.

Does it really matter if I have chemo done by Thanksgiving and surgery by Christmas? Not really. Would I like to have all the big bills done in 2022, sure, but does it really matter, no. I just want to get back on track and find comfort in a plan of some sort. It is funny... I was talking with a friend tonight about chemo being delayed and said that I hoped that my white blood cells improve so I can do chemo next week. She laughed and said "so I can do chemo next week" said no one ever. I just laughed and said I guess I'm the odd ball.

Here's to hoping we are heading on the upward track again!