I walked in doing a little shimmy and had Shanika (our favorite receptionist) laughing because I was dancing. She’s seen my worst days, and always helped me get into the infusion room fast when I was super sick and needing fluids and nausea meds. She liked that I was feeling good. It's possibly because I had a patch that Erin ( one of my nurses) gave me to try to help with the sickness since I seem to keep getting worse and worse each time. She said it's a miracle drug, and if it works, we'll figure out a way to get more, but they're crazy expensive : $600 per patch and insurance doesn't cover them.
Bad news: labwork said my platelets were dangerously low today. They were a 28. Last week they were 76, before that, they were 100. (Thousand) If you’re like me and didn’t know what that meant, it’s not a good thing. It means if I bleed, it won’t clot. I’ll basically bleed to death. So now I’ve got a list of things I’m not allowed to do: I can’t shave with a normal razor, it has to be electric so I don’t cut myself. Can’t use knives or scissors or anything sharp. Certain products I’m not allowed to use, like toothpaste with tartar control. I can’t floss in case it causes my gums to bleed. Had to buy an ultra soft toothbrush so again, my gums don’t bleed. Certain foods I can’t eat-fresh fruits and veggies. I don’t understand this at all but whatever. Can’t be around live plants or flowers. (Huh?) Can’t deal with pet waste, including aquariums, which didn’t matter because that’s Kris’s thing anyway. Just find it odd. I can’t do any housework (no, she honestly said that) and I can’t do anything that would cause me to get a bruise. There’s a big list of stuff they gave me. It’s weird. Anyway, my count today was at 28,000 and once you reach 20,000 your body can bleed without injury so you have to get a transfusion. Not cool.
Good news: NO MORE CHEMO!! I’ll take that. Unfortunately, it's not because I finished. They said my body physically can not handle it anymore. I told y’all the chemo was trying to kill me, didn’t I!? They said it was to the point it was doing more harm than good, and we just couldn't continue.
I still have 11 more radiation treatments to go, then the Brachytherapy (internal radiation) and then the immunotherapy. But that chemo was fucking brutal and I’m over the moon happy to be done with that, regardless of the reason. I just hate that we wasted this billion dollar patch. I was genuinely curious to see if it could win the battle against chemo. Patch vs Cisplatin. Guess we don't find out today. I'm good with that, but I feel really bad because someone else out there as sick as me could have actually used it.
Next Wednesday, I have a biopsy for the clinical trial. I have to be there at 5:30am so they can prep me and get me put to sleep because apparently this is going to be an intense one. Yikes.
Anyway, just wanted to share my exciting news. I totally cried when Erin called to confirm the chemo was done. No shame. The fight isn’t over yet, but this is indeed a victory for me. It puts me one step closer to feeling like myself again. Eating normal food again, and just not feeling sick all the time.
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