Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Post-Chemo Update

Yesterday was Day 1 of Cycle 4, so in addition to chemo I saw my gyn/onc. She took out the stitches from the port removal and wants to get it totally healed before moving forward with a second port installation, which is fine by me. I think I will also take Scott's suggestion to use an Epsom Salt compress on the site, since it seems like there may be stuff in there that wants out. She felt that the progress was okay, and even though I was getting more pain from it the last couple days, the removal of the stitches seems to have calmed that down quite a bit. The doctor was upset that when they took out the port they didn't save what they removed to have cultured, so we could get this thing over with once and for all.

The really good news was that we discussed the visit to New York and the results of the CT scan in more depth, and we (Scott was with me) found out that the actual tumor in my pelvis has shrunk as well, not just the lung mets! It seems that the treatment is really doing the trick, and she even gave me the option of moving from three week cycles to four week cycles so I could get more strength back in between. I thought about it and decided that I would stick with three-week cycles as long as I can deal with the fatigue just to keep things moving at a faster pace. If I lose a week every month I can get behind and I would rather try to make it to the surgery in less time.

We also discussed Scott donating the blood for future transfusions and surgery (we could get two pints out of him pre-surgery), and it seems that we are a good match since he has O+ and I have B+. The Dr. was only worried about the blood out to the Rh factor level, so she will write a prescription for a donor-to-donor transfer the next time I need a transfusion. The only thing I worry about is that I may develop a conditional blindness to dirty clothes on the floor if I get too much of Scott's blood running through my veins!

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