Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Adios Red Devil!

On Friday June 14th I completed my final round of Adriamycin and Cytoxan! Round 4 was uneventful like I had hoped it would be. My oncologist and clinical study nurse marveled at how normal my blood work was, like a person who isn't even going through chemo. My oncologist told me that she feels like she isn't doing anything with me because the process has been so easy on me (except for all of my superficial complaints of weight gain, acne, and hair loss which when you're dealing with cancer, don't get much sympathy). After saying this, she shrugged her shoulders and turned to leave and I told her I hope I always make her want to shrug and leave because as a patient I'm a non event. Even though things have been "easy" for me so far,  what really matters is that all of our appointments post treatment for the next 30 years are the easy ones. I'd put up with any hardship right now to sail through the rest of these oncology appointments for the rest of my life.

So I get pats on the back and escorted over to the infusion room by my proud clinical study nurse. I'm settled into my chair and my chemo nurse comes over to review my stats and comments on how high my white blood counts are. About to pat myself on the back again, she said "I never see them this high". So I sneak a peak and turn to Dr. google and yep, they are high, like infection high. But I feel fine! I spend a good amount of time stressing about this when luckily my clinical study nurse returns. I ask her about it and she says "oh yeah, it's high" and I'm all like "what's wrong with me, am I dying???"  And she says "no, it just means that your Neulasta shot is working really well for you." Phew!!! Sometime during the day I sign up for the patient portal where I can view all my blood work results. Super bad idea for a hypochondriac, as now I have some other concerns that I need to bring up next treatment. When will I learn that ignorance is bliss?

The rest of the treatment went smooth and I felt ready to ring that bell to check off such a huge part of my chemo regimen. But alas, you can't ring until you're really done and I have 12 weekly Taxol/Herceptin combos in my future. I did witness a big chemo party across the hall as the lady finished her final infusion. Friends, flowers, happy nurses, bell ringing...will you come to my final chemo party??

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