No Chemo for Me

No chemo for me yesterday. I was right when I thought my counts would be too low, and they were. My platelets were more than 25,000 too low. To put that in perspective, normal is 150k-400k. When I had my transfusion last week I was 34k. Yesterday I was 73k. I need to be at least 100k to have my chemo.

I was very very disappointed. I was afraid this day would come, the day I got delayed, but I was hoping against hope that it wouldn’t come for me. That I would stay perfectly on schedule and sail through this last 9 weeks like a charm. Well no go. Like on Apollo 13, they all had to say “go, no go” for the flight, my blood work was a no go for chemo. I begged and whined a little bit, please please, let’s just go ahead. But, of course, the answer was no. To proceed with a drug that terrorizes your platelets when your platelets are so low is to ask for a trip to the hospital. As Michelle, my chemo nurse said, “you would end up in the hospital and you would make a terrible patient!” Ok, so that may be somewhat true, I’d only be terrible because I’d be working so hard to get out!

My care team is convinced I’m pushing through all this with pure grit, I say I’m just putting one foot in front of the other. I’m fighting fatigue with exercise. Fighting nausea with the right food.

I felt like my body has betrayed me. I mean, it knew the importance of a rebound. My body knew that it had to get those platelets up or it would be a no go. But my body is tired and I guess its time to give it a break. We (me and my body) have been at this for 12 weeks now with no break. I guess its time to give her a little R&R from this slightly toxic remedy and let her just breathe and rest. So that is what I’m going to do. Dry the tears and cowgirl up and take this week as a blessing. Use this time to reenergize and refortify and prepare for the last 9 weeks. So I have 10 weeks to go rather than 9 weeks, no biggie. I remember four years ago going through radiation and I was delayed numerous times because of burns, the last time being when I only had a few treatments left! But the doctors know when you have had enough and your body can take no more. At that point, they have to back up and let you recover. That is what I did then, and that is what I will do now. Back up, take a few deep breaths and recover. Eat right, moderate exercise and rest. That is the key to recovery. Balance, all things in balance.

My dad said I’m vying for another trip to the coast. Sounds good to me! Let’s go papa!

Like I said yesterday, you can’t control the wind, but you can adjust your sails. Well that was somewhat prophetic for me. Because I can’t control the wind on this one. It is what it is. However, I can adjust my sails, my attitude, towards what is happening. If you have never been through this, you can’t imagine the overwhelming disappointment it is to get delayed. I was talking to a fellow survivor last night at T’ai Chi Chih and she understood perfectly. You feel SO let down. You are ready to just rock n. roll on through it, and when you can’t, well the wind is let out of your sails. So, you have to just adjust those sails and move on forward.

That’s what I’m going to do. Just keep on sailing. Despite the direction of the wind.