Got my CBC results yesterday, and my platelets were 93. Close, but not quite the 100 we were looking for, and my doctor is a bit of a stickler for these things. That means Chemotherapy Round 6 is delayed by yet another week, pushing me about three weeks past the ideal six-week dosing.
I currently have mixed feelings about the delay. I mean, I really want to get done with all the chemo crap. This roller coaster of feeling like a steaming turd and then being throat punched by another dose of gleostine just as I’m starting to feel human again is making me cranky.
But! Going this long between doses has also given my wrecked body a little bit of a break. My appetite is better, my energy is up slightly, my neuropathy is less intense, and my dehydration is manageable with enough sports drinks and electrolyte pops. As a result, I’ve had just enough energy to accomplish a few necessary items on my to-do list—including renewing my driver’s license and getting an eye exam.
Not that I drive right now.
I’m lucky in that I don’t have seizures and my doctor has not revoked my driving privileges, but I’m not comfortable driving. I get vertigo looking left or right, and I still don’t have full range of motion when turning my head. I find the thought of getting behind the wheel really unsettling. But I thought it would be easier to keep my license current than let it lapse.
And now it’s back to trying to get a standing order for IV fluids. (I love my team at Washington University, but they’re kind of far away. Things get complicated when it’s time to coordinate the little stuff that needs to happen close to home.)
Moonfaced and bedheaded, but happy the blood draw went well.
Yesterday was my first post-gleostine lab day.
Gleostine chemotherapy, like all chemotherapy, requires a weekly complete blood count (CBC) with differential. On a pretty basic level, it lets me know how dangerous it is to go out in public without a mask. On a more complicated level, it lets my doctors know if I might need a course of antibiotics or perhaps a break from gleostine. This stuff is hard on the cancer and the body, after all.
Anyway, I don’t typically look forward to things that require my being stuck with a needle. Not because I have a phobia, but just because who does? As a patient who’s been stuck for blood samples and IVs hundreds of times since February, I think my veins sense when the needle is coming and get very unhelpful.
A couple of weeks ago, a one-stick event turned into a four-stick event simply because my veins were tired of cooperating.
So I always say something before the tourniquet goes on to put everyone at ease and manage expectations.
“I’m a hard stick,” I told the phlebotomist. “Start wherever you like, with whichever arm you like, but know that you might have to go to the back of the hand and try several times. And I’m okay with that.”
“Do you get stuck a lot?” she asked.
“Heh. Yeah, a LOT.”
She tried the left arm and couldn’t find a suitable vein. She didn’t even try with the needle. Just unwrapped the tourniquet and moved on.
“I drank twenty ounces of water before I came here.” (I always get asked if I’m drinking enough water. Always. The answer is: I am up peeing three to four times a night. I’m getting all the water I can without drowning.)
But thank the patron saint of blood draws, she found a pretty vein in my right arm before I even finished explaining that I wasn’t a bad patient.
One stick, and the blood filled up the vial in record time.
By 10 p.m., the test results were already in my patient portal, and everything is in range so far.
