It's been a month since the last update, so it's time to let you know how treatment is going.
We've gone to the burn clinic several times so they can monitor progress and change treatments as needed. We've been changing the dressing twice a day to keep it from drying out (which would slow the healing process). They did inform us on the last visit that it is getting better; it's just healing slowly because of the chemotherapy. I probably still have a month or two before it is healed enough to stop doing daily dressing changes.
Going into my regularly scheduled chemo infusion day of May 6th, I could tell that things weren't good because of some extreme tiredness and a little bit of dizziness. Sure enough, my bloodwork showed I was anemic again (low red blood cell count). The doctor decided to hold off on chemo and give me a unit of blood instead. It made me feel a lot better.
We returned a week later for more bloodwork. When the doctor saw the results from those tests, he was surprised that the numbers had bounced back so much in just a week. He said that he had been pretty worried that a downward spiral was starting, so the rapid improvement was a real relief. He gave me another week off of chemo.
We saw the doctor again on May 20th. The bloodwork that day looked good again. The decision was made to greatly reduce the frequency of the chemotherapy treatments to keep the blood counts from getting so low and to help me just generally feel better. We will now do one week of chemo and then have two weeks off. We'll do a scan in a couple of months to make sure this is enough to keep the cancer in check. Keep your fingers crossed.
Thanks for all the support you give in so many ways. I appreciate the phone calls, text messages, e-mails, prayers, and good thoughts. They come from everywhere, including some from outside of the country. They really do help me to stay more positive about this situation. Thanks again.
