It is really about the adversity

September 5, 2023

The last time we checked in with our heroine, she had had a rough but fantastic day. She had a bone marrow biopsy and then was discharged, and recharged (?) and then finally discharged from the hospital (after some mild drama which we still cannot talk about). Since then, she’s been doing great! Really feeling good, and eating all the good things. Who knew corn came on cobs, or that cucumbers and tomatoes and feta could taste good together! What - avocados! She didn’t miss the cherry gelatin one bit! She even went to Spelunkers for lunch yesterday (if you don’t know Spelunkers, she doesn’t know if she should be friends with you) and had a cavern burger.

She needed to go to the Doctor’s office every day, but that was a minor inconvenience for her busy schedule. She found out that her blood numbers looked really good! She hadn’t had that much hemoglobin since April, and the good anti-infection white blood cells were really climbing. Things were looking up for her and the possibility of passing as having normal bone marrow in a crowd.

One day, she got the results of her bone marrow biopsy. They were good, but really sort of inscrutable in that medical way. Were they as good as she thought? Is this the direct line to the bone marrow transplant?! Only a trip to the Doctor to discuss would be definitive.

Fast forward to today, she went to meet with Dr. Yin to go over the results and talk about next steps.

She only cried a little bit at the office, but that’s getting ahead of ourselves.

Dr. Yin said the biopsy results were mixed. The path report was really good 5-6% blast cells (the bad cancer cells), but the aspirate (the liquid they pull off first) showed 10% blast cells, just good. To advance to the transplant, they want to see between 0-5% blast cells, and conservatively, they will take the higher number. However, this means the chemo is working (going from 60%, to 20%, to 10% now – so all-in-all, really good results).

He wants her to do another round of the FLAG-IDA chemo. It’s been working, and should continue to work to get the blast cells down to where we want them to be. Getting solidly below 5% would have a much better relapse percentage.

Dr. Yin continued to say that it would be another round in the hospital, starting the end of this week, and folks, that’s when the waterworks started. She knows its all for good, but enduring the noise, the bed, the monitoring, the yuck, and really everything else, wasn’t on her bingo card for September. She just couldn’t go back to having (not making this up) the beef pot roast with extra gravy and mashed potatoes be the highlight of her evening. Oh wait, there was also the time she thought “I don’t know a lot about Civil War Battles, lets read up on that. Her numbers look great now, but they will drop again, she’ll get mouth sores again, she’ll only be able to eat soft foods again: no toast, no pretzels, no M&Ms… It’s hard to go back.

However, she pulled herself together and left the Doctor’s office knowing that the whole cover page to this blog is about adversity, and how just because you get a little knocked down (or embarrassingly knocked out of the NCAA tournament as the first seed), it’s not the end of things. It’s not even bad. This is just a little stunning Furman upset while wearing a UVA sweatshirt (at least she didn’t wear the face paint). Next year baby! Just need a little space, and she’ll rise.

Anyway, a few tears later, she’s was back home contemplating what the fresh summer produce lunch option for Tuesday would be when the phone rings. Dr. Yin has discussed with the nursing staff, and they believe they can do the Chemo outpatient.

Again: THEY BELIEVE THEY CAN DO THE CHEMO OUTPATIENT.

More to come on the plan, but she’s so much happier and contented. She will do what she needs to do, but doing it from home, or at least planning to do it from home, is so much blessedly nicer.

Right now (and dude, the plan is day-to-day), the Chemo should start Monday. I’ll need to go in everyday next week, and probably for most of the day those days, then every other day for monitoring for a month. That means I’m another month away from the transplant – which puts it through Thanksgiving and into December – but that’s OK. The reduction in relapse is so worth it. As is the shift to first person in this blog.

Many thanks still for your continued prayers and good wishes. This week, I’m thinking about an easy second FLAG-IDA round and no infections.

Enjoy this picture of Mothra, dog extraordinaire, listening to our heroine complain about something inconsequential.