Two days after learning that I had cancer I saw this commercial on TV (and I actually haven’t seen it since).

I’m pretty much in love with Tina Fey and I was stoked to learn that she was a spokesperson for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS).

About a week later I was reminded that I had in fact already encountered the LLS before. In March of 2008 I participated in The Big Climb. It was something that my father-in-law and brother-in-law wanted to do so I signed up with them. The Big Climb is a yearly event at the Columbia Tower in downtown Seattle and its a timed race up the stairs of the tallest building in Seattle (the weekend before is always host to the firefighters competition who do the 69 flights of stairs in full gear!)

What’s funny is that The Big Climb is the only benefit/race/competition thingy that I have EVER done since “Jump Rope for Heart” back in grade school (anyone?) and to remember that The Big Climb benefited the LLS seemed pretty ironic to me (though I am probably using that word in the incorrect Alanis Morissette way). I really had a good time at the event I remember being really impacted by all of the teams of people there to support a loved one impacted by Leukemia or Lymphoma. In fact while I was waiting for my timed results to be posted (I beat both my father-in-law and my then 18 year old brother-in-law BTW!) I actually did the cheek swab test and had myself added to the National Bone Marrow Donor Registry. Though now that I actually have one of the blood cancers I should probably call and take myself off the list =)

Anyway, between my forgotten history with the LLS and now the new Tina Fey connection, I was pretty sure from the start that I had been diagnosed with the right cancer for me!

I tell you that story to tell you this: On the morning of Halloween, Sunday October 31st at Seward Park in Seattle is the Running Scared 5K, benefiting the local chapter of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. We are putting a group together to participate and I wanted to open it up to anyone who wants to join us.

It should be a fun morning, and it looks likes it’s a pretty small event as far as these things can go. There are costume contests (for people and dogs) and the event itself is a run/walk. It’s at a great time for me in my chemo cycle so I will get to participate and will be walking for anyone who wants to walk along with me or who may not be excited about running 3.1 miles.

So if you want to join us on the morning of Halloween please let me know directly or you can leave a comment below (remember you can just type in your name to leave a comment, you don’t have to include your email address and stuff) and I will be sure get your contact info to my sister, Tanya, who is coordinating the team. It’s a $25 entry fee, but if you sign up with us you’ll get $5 discount as our team is already larger than 10.

Let us know if you are interested! It’s for a great cause and it’s a great way to hang out for a bit and get some exercise!

I already had today’s post written. It was all about how I didn’t want to go chemo today because I felt really good (in fact this is the best I’ve felt in months). Then at about 4:40 in the afternoon on Tuesday I got a phone call from the doctor’s office letting me know that they did not want me to come in for chemo. I had gotten what I wanted, but suddenly I wasn’t happy about it.

I had gone in on Tuesday morning to have what will become a standard day-before-chemo blood draw, and the results indicated that my white blood cell count has not recovered enough for me to undergo another treatment this week. The nurse that I spoke to didn’t seem to think that this was something to be overly concerned about, it doesn’t indicate anything and it’s a common side effect of chemotherapy. My doctor just wants to wait another week and give those numbers a chance to get higher before we start up again. She also indicated that with this knowledge they may be prescribing some additional medications to help boost my white blood cell counts after the next treatment, now (tentatively, I guess) scheduled for next Wednesday.

This is actually really frustrating. I spent the whole day thinking about how I REALLY did not want to go back in for chemo, but now that it’s a reality I just wish that I was going in. I mean, let’s get this show on the road! Every day I’m not being treated is another day that I’m not getting better. Please note that this sentiment is now the exact opposite of the original draft where I spent several hundred words complaining about how I did not want to go in for my second dose of chemo today. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.

The biggest bummer is that this will push us onto a new two week schedule. Looking forward, the original every two week schedule seemed to fit well with a number of events that we already had on the calendar. Most notably the upcoming holidays. Thanksgiving and Christmas both fell on what was looking to be “a good week” for me. But if I now have chemo next week and then everything is based on that two week cycle it now pushes them onto “a bad week.” Oh well. One thing I’ve clearly learned is not to count on anything, it can all change so very fast!

I had a chance to see the results of the blood test which kept me from chemo last Wednesday. Whereas a normal person has a white blood cell count (WBC) in the 4.0 – 10.7 K/ul (I think that’s thousands per unit maybe?) range, mine came back at an underwhelming 1.5.

I can see all of my blood test results online so I went back and looked at the results from previous CBC/PLT/DIFF’s that I’ve had just to give since I was curious to see how those numbers have changed. My first doctor’s appointment back on September 13 had my WBC count at 13.7 which is actually high. I don’t know if it’s related, but this would be back when my symptoms were pretty acute and I was consistently running a temperature in low 100’s most of the time. Two weeks later, in anticipation of my first chemo treatment and chest port installation (which still hasn’t happened), I had another blood draw and my WBC count was back down to 10.7, just on the high end of the normal range. But then my first chemotherapy treatment came along and wiped them out… all of them.

This is one of the reasons why people going through chemotherapy are so prone to infection. Christine is much better at freaking out and worrying about this much more than I am. She’s admitted to pretty much becoming a germ-a-phobe lately, as she convinced that she’s going bring something home that I’m going to catch and that will kill me. She’s taken to leaving the house armed with disinfectant hand sanitizers and wipes, and has become an obsessive hand washer. It’s like the Swine-Flu scare all over again. Admittedly, I haven’t been so great about changing my habits in that respect, and I’m pretty sure that it’s slowly driving her insane. But I don’t really leave the house as much as I used to so as far as I’m concerned, I’m more likely to catch something from the dog (fleas, rabies, a tapeworm) than I am from the outside world. Still, 1.5… if that’s what it was two weeks after my first dose of chemo, I shutter to think about how low it actually got. What’s worse is that Christine might be right to be so concerned.

I go in again this morning for another pre-chemo blood draw before tomorrow’s re-scheduled treatment. Here’s hoping that my WBC count has come back up enough so that I can have chemotherapy tomorrow and we can send those numbers crashing back down. What an odd thing to wish for.