Well all was going swimmingly well up until 19:30 last night. I mean I was almost feeling too good! I jinxed myself...BOOOOO!
I took my neupogen shots at 17:00 as per usual (these are the ones that are to boost my white blood cells(WBC) to fight infection off) they go by injection into my belly x2, I have been taking them since day 3 post chemo. The side effects of this drug is bone pain, because what it is doing is creating a whack load of new WBC's which are literally churning through your bone marrow.
You have the most bone marrow in your lower back, hips, and femur bones. So at 19:30 the neupogen side effects reared their ugly heads and I ended up in writhing agony in my lower back not able to sit, lie down, walk....nothing it was horrendous! So I had some pain medication (Dilaudid) that was prescribed to me on Monday while I was at the hospital for the allergic reaction and swollen neck, so I took the recommended dose. It did nothing! Didn't even touch it. By 02:30am I called the oncologist on-call and he upped the dose significantly and told me to take it every hour until the pain was under control......well that was 10mg of dilaudid later and 05:30 I finally fell asleep.
I had 3 calls from the cancer agency yesterday. Two were follow up calls re:how was I doing with my allergic symptoms from Monday and what they wanted me to do to keep them under control. Then at 17:00 I got a call to come into the cancer agency for today because my blood work was showing significantly low WBC and neutrophil and platelette counts. So Dr. Battersill who saw me Monday, wanted to reassess me and do another set of bloodwork.
I had to get up to the hospital today this morning for that follow up visit and lab work and in the meantime this neupogen reaction in my back had happened! It's really a minute to minute deal.
What's the verdict? Well both Dr. Battersill (General Practicioner ONC) and Dr. Bernstein, oncologist both saw me today and discussed what the future chemo treatments will look like. They stopped the neupogen shots immediately for the remainder of this cycle (which means I miss 2 doses) and they have put me on Cipro (an antibiotic) to keep me from getting infection. Dr. Bernstein still feels this "cocktail" of chemo is the right one for me, and stated how badly she felt that I had been through everything and was very reassuring that she had no intensions of my treatment to continue with all these issues! She is going to reduce my chemo dose to 80% of the protocol and she says the efficiacy will stay the same (meaning it is still worth it to do it) and hopefully this will be the solution.
So I slept all afternoon, as I had no sleep for 2 nights, and have been up to have dinner and seem to be in the land of the living. Here's hoping for a better day tomorrow.......I have my consult with
Dr. Hiyashi for my porta catheter (permanent central catheter) insertion and they are having home labs come to my house to take lab work tomorrow.
Sorry no cupcakes to report, it all sounds a little depressing, but I'm going to be ok, it's just a process. One day at a time! x0x
