Plans and changes

Back in July we were hoping to spend this week in Israel. Avi was to give lectures in two conferences and he was very excited about both. We were also planning to perform our civic duty and vote. And of course we were looking forward to spending the week with the family, see friends etc. From Israel we were going to go for a week to Heidelberg to another conference.

But plans do change and we knew all of this won't pan out when we found out that Avi's situation has changed and we will be spending many months now focused on treatments only.  With that, we are very happy and grateful about all the trips we did manage to take in the spring and early summer!

Today, for example, started with a CBC (Complete Blood Count) and a doctor's visit. As expected all of Avi's numbers plummeted due to the chemo and as also expected we had to go to the transfusion center at the hospital for transfusions of platelets and red blood cells. In fact, Avi needs two units of red blood cells, but the second will be given only early next week. By then he probably will need even more... He's having another CBC Monday morning and then more concrete plans will be made.

This is all to be expected, but it is of course unpleasant and the fact that Avi's white blood cells are also completely depleted raises the worry of infections and the level of precautions he has to take (white blood cells cannot be transfused, but they do give shots which boost the body's production of white blood cells).

The milestone after a chemo is the nadir – which means the lowest point of blood levels, after which things start improving. With Avi's EPOCH chemo, the hope is to reach the nadir roughly a week after the end of the treatment, which means that during the second week of respite there is a marked improvement, by which time the patient is ready to go back for the next round of chemo. Unfortunately, the nadir came much later after the first chemo and that is why the second one was delayed by a few days. We are hoping very much that this won't repeat itself this time, but of course we cannot recognize a minimum until it has passed... And in case you are interested in the meaning of the word – nadir is kind of the opposite of zenith!

Avi is very tired, so he spends a lot of time with his eyes closed, even when not asleep. This is what he looked like earlier today when talking with our son on the phone!


Avi's brother and sister in law will arrive later today. This is surely going to be another fun visit. Nice that so many people are coming over, and we already know about the next set of visitors, our oldest son and Avi's other brother!

Comments

  1. AnonymousSeptember 20, 2019 at 12:47 AM

    Thank you for keeping us informed Edna. Our love and hugs with all of you all the time. Roshni, Madhulika and Madhu

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownSeptember 20, 2019 at 12:56 PM

    Thanks for sharing. Avi is quite NADIR...
    Count me in for the next set of visitors..

    ReplyDelete

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