Hospital: Second round of orange chemo

 I am due to be released home today, when done with the 2nd round of this 5 day continuous orange mix of poisons. All in all, it was easier than the 1st round – as Edna’s last post says “Practice makes perfect (almost)”. I was better prepared to protect my fractured vertebra  (better chair, bed controls, foam topper for the bed, etc.). I was also better prepared to fight some of the side effects of the chemo (this is my third chemotherapy treatment in the past 2 years, and they each have different ones….), this certainly the most potent (e.g. my new hairdo). The many morning pills in the picture (and the evening ones, and the many other things they directly inject to the I.V.) are of course part of theses anti-side-effects agents, and one wonders which cancels each other before they cancel the side effects…

Now for 16 days of respite at home. In the previous, 1st round, I had to spend 5 of these respite days in the hospital due to fever (which luckily ended up being only a virus). After this aggressive chemo all blood numbers, including immune system ones, go dangerously low, almost to zero. So I should watch out not to contract anything, especially bacteria that may go to the blood and cause sepsis. This is not so easy just by hiding from other people (a lesson that is relevant also for the period after transplant, when no immune system to speak of exists for a while). It turns out what one often contracts is virus or bacteria from one's own body (they are everywhere of course, skin, gums, guts…). These may and do decide to attack, and  our immune system (when in normal levels) brushes them off constantly without our noticing anything. But it doesn't without soldiers (namely, when  you have almost no neutrophils). 

Anyway, blood numbers fall off due to chemo, to a minimal level, and then climb back during respite. (For language lovers, this minimal point is called Nadir, and is the opposite of the familiar Zenith). I was slow to come up from the Nadir last time, which delayed starting my 2nd round of chemo. This slowness caused the doctors to reduce my chemo dose this round to 80%, and hopefully there will be no delays this time towards the 3rd round. I am hoping to stay on track towards the transplant. An important measurement will be in about 10 days - I will have another bone marrow biopsy, to see how effective the chemo was in reducing the population of cancer cells (so as few as possible will remain after the transplant).

Really looking forward to being at home!

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