A Spork in the Road

Had my blood work done today, and the Neulasta is doing its job: good WBC count, and holding steady on the hemoglobin and platelets as well.

Also, I did not pass out this time.

I’m still enjoying the fuzzhead, although while my hair continues to fall out, it is also GROWING. Falling out. And growing. This seems wrong.

The weekend was a little tiring with the show (more on that later) and an indie film audition (more on that later too). But I had minimal mouth pain this weekend, well masked by spearmint gum, and by yesterday I was feeling peppy and alert again.

I’m realizing that although I’m pumping my body with toxic chemicals every two weeks, I’ve also eliminated a lot of toxic chemicals. No caffeine. No alcohol. Regular, healthy meals. Staying super hydrated. NOT STRESSING. The net effect is that once the initial chemo juiciness wears off, I actually feel better for the rest of the round than I have in ages.

Also, killing off the cancer that was swarming through my immune system doesn’t hurt.

Also, those steroids lead to total enlightment at four o’clock in the morning.

It’s 6:15am and I’ve been up, more or less, since 4:00am, trying to stop feeling so stupidly happy and confident.

I know it’s partly the steroids. I think it’s also that cancer has thrown some wild “let go” switch for me and I feel like I’m shedding so much sorrow and anger and resentment every day that I just get lighter and lighter. I may have to tether myself this weekend so I don’t float away.

Or it could be the steroids.

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My hair didn’t make it to the end of the play. It was just falling out today, getting carried away on gentle gusts of wind, coming out in shanks when I tried to gently wash it this morning.

So the ever kind and stylish Alicyn cut my hair down to a couple inches, and then James brought over his shears, and Lil cut it down to refugee length. I’m now a happy fuzzhead with a wig and scarf for the weekend show and lots of headgear possibilities.

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Okay, so the details aren’t so gory, at least not in context, but what you are about to read may displease those who are not accustomed to discussing intimate medical details over a pastrami sandwich. In the future I will always tag these posts with the “too much information” tag so that you know when I’m delving into the details of treatment.

So if the topics of needles, bone pain, bowel movements, and the like are not your preferred reading, skip this post and wait till I talk about something like acting, the insanity of dogs, or Floridian bird life. You’ll sleep better.

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I had my second round of chemo today (one cycle down!). That leaves ten to go.

I was confident that my white blood cell (WBC) count would be up, though Lil was very nervous. I got settled in, had my port inserted and blood drawn, and waited for the lab to turn around my results.

Now, a normal WBC count is between about 3.5 and 9.6, and a normal GR# (neutrophil) count is between 1.5 and 6.5. (Those units are in 10^3 cells per microliter, for the engineers in the crowd.) Last week my WBC and GR# counts were at 1.9 and 0.5 respectively. This week, after the shots, I was hoping my GR# would be around 2 or 3. What were they this morning?

WBC: 32.0!
GR#: 28.4!

Take THAT!

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