Chemo #11

Lately the chemo makes me cold and I get a heated blanket!

I woke up with a ton of congestion and a cough.  The oncologist's office had called me yesterday to say that my ANC was low and I would have to come in earlier to get another port blood draw to see if yesterday's Neupogen shot brought my numbers back to the normal range.  Turns out my ANC was 0.5 - and you can't get much lower than zero!! They asked me if I had any infections or fevers since it was so low.  I didn't, but that explains why I woke up with the congestion and cough.  Also, I seem to get bloody noses whenever my ANC is low.

They took blood and re-did the ANC and it was 5.1 - which is good enough to continue with chemo.  However, in the past 3 days, I have developed numbness in my left toes.  It happens mostly at night and when I wake up.  During the day, it is generally pretty normal.  This worried the oncologist and he was leaning toward making me take a week off of chemo.  His fear is that I can have permanent neuropathy if we don't watch out.  He was confused that only one foot is effected. Neuropathy usually effects both hands and feet at the same time. I convinced him that my numbness is not serious and not impacting anything that I'm doing.  He wanted to be cautious, but in the end he let me do chemo this morning.

My weight is down another 2 lbs!!!  Usually they do not like to hear that we are losing weight, but since I have put on 10 lbs during chemo, I have a few pounds to still lose.  My heart rate was too high when I came in for my Neupogen shot yesterday (101) and again today (105).  I guess that's not good and they are really watching it. I'm trying to breath and relax. Ha!  Hot flashes, like a serious  inferno, have been going on since the start of chemo and have just been getting worse.

It's unbelievable to me that I only have FIVE more chemos left!!  That is so do-able!  The end is in sight!  I don't know what I'm going to do with my Wednesdays when I'm done.  I told my favorite nurse that I would just come in on Wednesdays for a warm blanket and a bag of Doritos.  :)