There was one bit of mildly concerning news that arose from our visit with the oncologist, and that would be the continued issues with my white blood cell counts. Even with the Neupogen injection I receive for 5 days after chemo my WBC count was only at 3.0 k/u when I went in for chemo again on Wednesday. This is still well below the normal range, though I guess it’s an improvement over the 1.5 k/u that it was at after my first treatment (which was the impetus for putting me on the drug). In fact it’s twice as good. Even so, the doctor indicated that it’s still an underwhelming result and if it does not show signs of improving before my next treatment on the 24th, then she will consider taking some additional action, including extending the injections for a few additional days after treatments. I’m really hoping that it won’t come to that because as it is, those injections will really start to take their toll by the time Monday and Tuesday roll around. So hopefully the same magic that suddenly caused my blood to clot in a more normal way will take effect on my white blood cells production now.
One thing that should help is exercise. The doctor is encouraging me now to start to exercising as regularly as possible and for at least 30 minutes a day if I can. Initially it was recommended that I not exercise much at all since the goal was work towards putting weight on me and keeping it on, and they didn’t want to anything to derail that effort. But now that I am back up to a normal weight for myself she would like to see back on an exercise plan to get my cardio back up (it’s pretty sad right now) and prevent further muscle loss.
I had pretty much forgotten how thin I had become when this all started. I’m back up now to a normal weight for me, I was 148 when I checked in for chemo on Wednesday, but when I was diagnosed almost 2 months ago I was in the low 130′s putting my Body Mass Index (BMI) squarely in the “Underweight” category. This week though, I was reminded twice how much better I guess I’m looking now. When we went and saw the show I was supposed to be in on Sunday, we stuck around to talk to people afterward I was approached by my good friend Trish who was firstly surprised to see me, and secondly told me right away how good I looked and that I had put on some much needed weight. Trish and I did a couple of shows together last spring and summer. Her comment sort of surprised me at first as I didn’t really realize that I had looked underweight during that time though in hindsight that makes alot of sense. That was the period of time when my cough and other symptoms first developed and when I first started having inclinations that something wasn’t quite right (of course I ignored everything for another month or two). Still, it was interesting for me to hear that perhaps I was in worse shape than I thought I was, even back then.
The other person to comment on my physical appearance was my doctor. Although we’ve spoken several times I hadn’t seen her in 5 weeks, and the first words out of her mouth when she passed us in the hall before the appointment was that I looked better. I guess 5 weeks and 15 pounds make a big difference.
What’s funny is that a few weeks before my diagnosis I even commented here on the blog about how scrawny I seemed to be. I had posted some pictures of my friends and I golfing in Hawaii and I included a picture of myself with the caption “It’s not often that I see a profile picture of myself. I ALWAYS forget how scrawny I really am.” Looking back through more of those pictures of me from our Hawaii trip this summer, and I have to admit that I’m looking pretty thin, and I still had a few weeks to go before I’d get to my worst. Thankfully there aren’t to many pictures of me at my low point.
It’s actually kind of hard for me to go back and look at some of those pictures of happier times, especially those golfing pictures. About a week after I was diagnosed my dear friend went into the hospital and has only recently started his own long journey of recovery. It’s hard to think about how long it will be before the 3 of us are all healthy enough to get back on the course again, but I already look forward to it, and in fact I think about that day almost every day. I’ve already decided that the two us who are (or hopefully, were) sick are going to ride in a golf cart. Dane can walk!
That’s probably enough rambling for now. On Monday or Tuesday I’ll post some pictures of this chest port that I have in me now. I wanted to wait a few days so that I could get some good progression photos of the bruising. The bruise is about 2-3 inches across and is responsible for most of the “tightness” that I described the other day, but it feels much better today than it did yesterday. I was initially concerned that there might be a problem since the bruising seemed much worse than I was prepared for, but the doctor put my concerns to rest when she basically told me “Meh, I’ve seen much, much worse” =)