(Yes, those are the words - I had to google them, because I definitely thought it was "punch" and not "bunch"... but then I started thinking... what in the world is this song about anyway? Kind of interesting. By the way, I love Beetlejuice.)
Anywho.
So, we are working on mom's chemo treatment #6, but we are at a stalling point. They draw blood every time before her oncologist appointment, which also precedes the chemo appointment and that's when they go over her labs with regard to blood cell count, different levels, etc. Well, today they were not so good, so they will not let mom have chemo therapy today. The main concern was the ANC.
The absolute neutrophil count is commonly called the ANC. Like I said, it was low, which means her immune system is weak. They gave her a shot of Neupogen, which will stimulate healthy neutrophil growth and hopefully raise her ANC level to the appropriate mark (to where it is safe to administer chemo tomorrow). If it doesn't work, they will try another shot, wait another 24 hours, do more blood labs, rinse and repeat until they get it right.
That's where we are for now. The new drugs that she started last treatment have been very different for her in terms of side effects. Basically ongoing nausea for the first 10ish days post-treatment (fortunately it never reached vomiting status, but I think she felt pretty awful a couple times), followed by intermittent nausea on and off with help of anti-nausea meds, very limited appetite, watery eyes, mild neuropathy in her fingers and toes, and random achy teeth. When I would check in on her, she said she would feel ok until she tries to eat something and then she almost immediately feels queasy. She said she is really careful about what she eats as well because if she eats anything remotely sweet, it makes her feel worse (although it doesn't keep her from craving a krispy kreme doughnut! 🍩🍩🍩)
We are actually kind of relieved that she will be able to get chemo and leave on the same day. Mainly due to last time when we woke up the next morning after chemo, she didn't even want to get out of bed due a terrible combination of a headache and nausea. We will cross our fingers and hope her levels get to a safe level to receive chemo and we can get #6 behind us. We are already looking ahead to surgery in January (likely the week of Jan 15), and we have an ultrasound scheduled for the next visit to see what is left of the tumor. There is already some debate about whether the tumor is metaplastic or not, due to how [seemingly] well the tumor has reacted to the chemo. Originally we thought that since it was diagnosed as metaplastic, that the chemo would have a very limited effect on the tumor. However, since it seems like ever since the 1st treatment, we've been unable to find it via physical examination, maybe it wasn't metaplastic after all (per the surgical oncologist). The surgery procedure will tell us a lot so we are anxiously awaiting more information at that time.
Until then, we are chugging along (at a snail's pace today, but nonetheless at a pace). 🐌🐌🐌
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