I’m back from the hospital — temporarily. Chemo #4 did not go as well as the others. From the first, it was a near disaster. I showed up all peppy and cheery (in a sweet-looking headwrap, pink hoodie, new jeans, and the pink(!) converse shoes that I’ve always wanted), and requested the phlebotomist (blood-drawer) that I had such a good experience with before. She wasn’t there, so another guy helped me out, cheerily enough, but he used my bruise from last week’s draw, which hurt.
Then we waited an hour to see my doctor — who wasn’t in — but the woman who trained her was. She was fabulous — except that she had some bad news to tell me. My bloodwork this week was not good. My white blood cells are very low, and she had to really pore over my history to see if it would be safe to give me chemo. You see, chemo kills the white blood cells (and the red blood cells, and the platelets), so if your counts are low to begin with, adding chemo could be very dangerous.
She settled on ok’ing the chemo today but adding a shot of Neulasta tomorrow to help boost my white blood cells. I don’t know how it works (and don’t want to know, so please don’t tell me), but Kim over at The Merits of the Case has been getting it regularly, so I’m not afraid. Even though I have to go back today (at a PRECISE time) to get shot with it in the stomach.
Then the experience in the chemo ward was bad. It was good in that I got my favorite chemo nurse (young, bright, and cheery), but bad in that she MISSED MY VEIN and blew another one. Common enough in late chemo, but PAINFUL and disconcerting.
I didn’t really have a good time yesterday.
I wish I could add a tagline of positivity here, but I’m not sure what it would be. Oh yeah, I got the chemo. I’m halfway through. I’m awake and alert. And we’ll get the shot to help me out later today. But it still really sucks.
Posted in breast cancer, chemotherapy
Oh, the sacrifices I make for you.
