Ups and Downs

Not being in control of your body is so incredibly frustrating.  The family calendar is now printed in pencil and depending on how my day is could quickly be modified or even erased.  Can I coach little league tonight?  Can I go to travel softball this weekend?  This is not always easy for Reese and Logan to digest but they are quickly adjusting.  Day to day and hour by hour is now my new normal.   

The first 2 rounds of chemo, while incredibly tough on my body, went off as scheduled and I quickly learned the patterns of its side effects.  Tired on days 1 and 2 and then nausea on days 3, 4 and 5, and then rebounding to get ready for the next round.  I was scheduled for my 3^rd round of chemo on April 22^nd with a quick visit with my oncologist first to discuss my side effects.  I have been in the emergency room twice with severe constipation which is actually not normal for my type of chemo.  I am on a chemo drug called Irenotecan (my vocabulary is expanding quite rapidly) and the nurses joke and call it ‘I run to the can’ because diarrhea can be so severe with this drug.   Not me!  My body has decided to have the opposite effect.  I am somewhat getting more control over the constipation issue but things are not ‘moving’ as they should.   

The next issue is my white blood cell count.  Because colon cancer can be considered a man’s disease, most of the clinical trials done are based on the male body with an average body weight of 200+lbs.  What this means for me is that the standard chemo dose is also given based on the clinical trials data.  While meeting with Dr. Dublis, my oncologist, she clearly thinks the first 2 doses of chemo were much too harsh so they have decided to back off a bit….thank you!  You can only have chemo if your counts are over 1.0 and when I went to have my 3^rd round on the 22^nd, it was .5 so no chemo that day and we would wait a week for my body to hopefully rebound. Naps, naps and more naps! 

I would show up once again for chemo the 29^th, friends in tow, and the initial blood work showed my count a 1.1.  Because this is apparently a preliminary number we had to wait for the lab to hand count my white blood cells and fortunately we were at 1.2!  I could never have imagined praying I would hope for a chemo dose!  This cancer journey sure has a way of messing with what I used to know as normal.  Everything seems to be opposite.  I hope for weight gain when I get on the scale….that has never happened in my life! 

Because of my constipation the initial thought was my tumor in my colon could be growing and causing a blockage.  Another visit to the surgeon’s office and another Rigid Sigmoidoscopy (ugh!) would reveal that my tumor is actually shrinking.  Praise the Lord! As tough as these rounds of chemo have been and the toll it has taken on me and my family, I am finally able to realize this is all worth it.  My fight continues!

 

Because of the chemo delay I was very worried I would not be able to travel this past weekend with Reese’s travel softball team to Indiana but thanks to ‘backing off the dose’ we packed up and headed out Friday night and I was able to enjoy a beautiful sunny weekend watching such a good group of girls doing what they love.  I am paying for it a bit today but it was all worth it! 

While my body continues to frustrate me I am becoming more and more aware that I am not in control.  I am doing my best to keep my positive attitude and am relying heavily on God to help me through.  God just has a way of figuring out the little details and for that I am grateful! 

God is Good!