A Spork in the Road

My blood counts are down today from last week. Neutrophils are hovering at the bottom of “normal” range, but my overall counts were down to 2.4 (marked simply with a “C” in the margin of my blood work sheet: “C” for “Critical”).

Neulasta works. It also retails around $7,000 per shot. An Everest of a number when you’re battling insurance woes and staring at a box full of past due medical bills.

We’re going to see if my counts climb back up a little next week. Otherwise we need to talk about Neulasta. In the meantime I wash my hands, avoid crowds, sleep more.

Loss grew as you did, without your consent; your losses mounted beside you like earthworm castings. No willpower could prevent someone’s dying. And no willpower could restore someone dead, breathe life into that frame and set it going again in the room with you to meet your eyes. That was the fact of it. The strongest men and women who had ever lived had presumably tried to resist their own deaths, and now they were dead. It was on this fact that all the stirring biographies coincided, concurred, and culminated.

Time itself bent you and cracked you on its wheel.

- Annie Dillard, An American Childhood

…was how I felt all week. The initial rush of being done with chemo has worn off, and I’ve still got all sorts of weird stuff flushing out of my body. I was irrationally angry all week: irritable, easily provoked. Not fun to be around.

Then this morning I woke up and felt fine again.

So weird.

Tomorrow I have a follow-up with my oncologist and then head into the fourth week since my last chemo.

I still taste metal, but my aches and pains have largely subsided and my physical and mental fatigue levels are improving daily. My appetite has quickly returned to normal, and my various bodily functions seem to be stabilizing.

Yesterday we went to the Earth Day celebration at Honeymoon Island. I was careful to apply ample sunblock and stay mostly in the shade, and I still got a very light burn, so it seems my skin is still extra sensitive to UV exposure.

It took a few days to get over the anxiety of not being on chemo, and I still get a nervous charge sometimes when I think about my next PET scan.

But hey: the joy of not being on chemo far outweighs the anxiety.

Tomorrow we’ll see how my blood counts are doing with neither chemo to kill nor Neupogen/Neulasta to boost them.

Had my blood work on Tuesday, and my white counts were very low. So I’ve been doing Neupogen this week to rescue my immune system.

The last couple days I’ve finally been feeling peppy again. They say you can’t feel when your white counts are low, but I’ll tell you, I felt like I’d been wrung out the first couple of days of the week, and now my counts are back up I feel a whole lot better. Might be coincidental, but in any event, I’m feeling better and very excited about this upcoming landmark Tuesday.

My hair is growing in much thicker already, but I’m getting it shaved down one last time to erase the sad little bald spot I have on the top of my head from wearing my headphones when my hair was still prone to fall out easily.

I’m looking forward to having real eyebrows again. And eyelashes. My eyes look naked if I don’t wear eyeliner.

Also nose hair. Very excited about having nose hair again.

Ah, cancer. The things we care about.

Afternoon Update: Just took my last Neupogen shot! As I was plunging the needle into my belly fat, it occurred to me that this is probably the last time I’ll be giving myself a shot for a long time!

My last chemo fog, and so easier for me to bear. A fog nonetheless. Sluggish brain, neurons trying to fire through taffy. Taste buds asleep: Powerade tastes different from water while being entirely flavorless.

I can taste feta cheese and onions. If you can’t taste feta cheese and onions, you’re probably dead.

Waiting for steroids to kick in. My last steroids. (I hope, I hope, I hope. Every time I say “last,” I hope it’s true.) When they kick in I’ll be dopey but energized, instead of dopey but sluggish: doing stupid things faster.

Still, I’m managing to get things accomplished, one by one. Task by task. Dragging my addled wits together long enough to complete a task, then letting them wander for a while before corralling them again.