Fifth Adcetris Dose

Oh yay! It's that time again--time to load my body with more poison to kill off more cancer cells (and healthy ones too).

I get to hear the results of the CT scan first, but I'm not expecting much.

Wait. What is this? Much better than I'd hoped for. Maybe I should have scans on my birthdays more often--as long as the results are this good.

So, the seven other places that had Hodgkins in them? Gone. Gone! All gone. Whew! And the largest tumor keeps shrinking bits at a time. Not as much shrinkage there as I'd hoped for, but still continued progress and shrinkage. Now we're down to one 22mm x 13mm mass that started as a 38mm x 23mm mass. Progress is good. And having only one area to worry about now is very good.

Unfortunately, that one mass is shrinking so slowly that Dr. Wendy estimates that I'm probably in for another seven doses of chemo--12 altogether. 12 doses x 3 weeks = 36 weeks of chemo this time. But it's not the full 16 doses and almost full year that it could have been, so I'll take my 12.

Another two needle sticks and attempts and blood is collected and an IV is placed again. Dr. Wendy mentions that we might have to insert a PICC line at some point to give chemo through, but that day isn't today.

Again, my blood hemolyzes and they have to stick me one more time to draw additional blood. No biggie!

About twenty minutes later, they're trying to tell me something; but my brain isn't focusing correctly and getting it. Something about white blood cells being too low. Oh no? More waiting before they can treat me? No, they're not so low that they can't treat today; and they're counting on the Neulasta shots to make up the difference over the next few weeks. Cool.

Wait. There's still a problem? Oh, now my red blood cells and platelets are too low also--low enough that I need to have two units transfused tomorrow. Okay. I've had blood before. My body tolerates it well, so they tell me to show up at Timpanogos Regional Hospital (again!) tomorrow at 1 p.m. It should take three hours to transfuse the two units and we should be on our way out by 4 p.m.

Chemo goes smoothly and quickly again, so I'm free for another three weeks (with the exception of the transfusion tomorrow).