Things Are Kinda Crappy | Side Effects of Chemo and Radiation have set in

Day +8 (photo above day +6)

Let me just start by saying, the diarrhea they talk about. Well, it's come and gone. Once I tested negative for C-diff, I was able to take Immodium and that helped. Lucky me!

The mouth sores, mucositis, I have it. It's pretty much just deep in my throat so there isn't much you can do besides deal with it or take pain meds. Right now, I just deal.

Nausea. I think I've been pretty lucky here. I only threw up 3 times and they all had to do with being gagged by pills or my toothbrush. So, I'm not taking any anti-nausea meds for this right now.

Appetite. It's all over the place. I went through a few days where I barely ate anything. I'm eating a little better, but not awesome. Good enough, I think. My taste buds are all over the place. One day strawberries were so incredibly sour. Today, my water tastes like gasoline. It's weird.

Fatigue. This is the big one. When my numbers are down, I get real tired. Just not able to do much of anything at all. I have to sit when I brush my teeth. I'm not really walking much at all (maybe 15 minutes a day). I also had a couple days when my blood pressure was super low, like 88/55 or something. So, probably another good reason to be tired. Also, see transfusions (below).

Hair Loss. I should have had Zach shave my head before getting admitted, but we just had other things we wanted to do. It's not quite as annoying since my hair is so short, but it's coming out quite a bit. I hope it doesn't look to patchy for too long.

Transfusions. So far I've need 3 platelet transfusions. No blood yet, but I'm getting close, I'm at 7.2 hemoglobin today and they will transfuse under 7. I hate the way they do transfusions and labs here. They take labs at midnight and then do transfusions in the middle of the night. So, no sleep for me!


Day + 3

The boys last day of skiing on Saturday, June 15 (crazy!)

ANC update:

500 is the magic number.

I bottomed out at 0 on day +3 or +4 then I hit 10, then 20, then back down to 10 and today, day +8 I'm back to 0. But, really any day now, they will start to make their move upwards. Usually, once they start to move up, they move pretty quick. I would guess once they start to make their way up (like hitting 100) it will be about a week to get to 500.

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Some Father's Day fun

Day +10

Day +11 (4 hour nose bleed! UGH. got some more platelets, and they upped my platelet threshold to 30 instead of 10, so hopefully that will never happen again.)

Day +12

I wrote this 4 days ago and never posted it. Things are getting better. My ANC is still only 10, but the docs seem to think I'll start moving up sooner than later. Hopefully going home sometime early next week! Cross your fingers!


Will update again soon.
Love & Light.
😷😘 michelle