7/12/23
Yesterday the head of the unit came by and offered to take me to the garden located in the cardiac care building. I had done some slight “hey, I really can’t leave the unit, right?” questioning of the nurses over the weekend, so my needy persistence must have had some effect. I needed to be accompanied by a nurse, but got a pass to go outside for the first time in 19 days yesterday. As you may guess, I burst out into tears.
Yesterday we got the results from Friday’s bone marrow biopsy; they weren’t the results we were hoping for. It looks like (again) I’m not responding as they would like to the treatment. David and I met with my doctor this morning and have a plan for the next round of chemo in place. I’ll be taking high doses of one of my previous chemo drugs (Cyterabine), the dose is some measure of 3,000, versus the previous measure of 200. I don’t understand what it all means, but it’s a high dose.
The chemo is given through a three-hour infusion, twice a day on days 1, 3 and 5. That means I’ll get 6 bags over the course of the next week. Previously the infusion had been 7 days of 24 hours a day.
The doctor explained that I’ll likely be in the hospital for at least month from today – again, they give the chemo and wait for my counts to recover. I’ll have another bone marrow biopsy on day 21 or so, again to determine how well the treatment is working. It’s likely to work, but not guaranteed by any means.
This is quite a disappointment.
In the category of “silver linings”, the Cyterabine hasn’t had horrible side effects for me. I am likely to keep my hair (I should have lost it last week, but it persists!), and haven’t had any nausea. I have added some eye drops (high doses can cause cataracts), and I get frequent neurological exams (touch my forehead and then nose, walk steadily over there, and name the current leader of the Tour de France, things like that).
Comments