Hi folks! Stine here. Brian went to bed before blogging, and tossed me the keys to the blog again.
Because we had our Halloween party last weekend, it feels like the holiday is over. This whole week has seemed like super-bonus -Halloween-week, because it’s my favorite holiday. That means fun spooky things are definitely to come this weekend as we gear up for trick-or-treaters and the “Running Scared 5K” to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma society.
It also means that more seriously spooky things may be ahead as Brian progresses after Wednesday’s chemo treatment. So far, so good; he has just had the anticipated fatigue and easily-controlled nausea/unsettled stomach. As we get into Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we hope that his mouth sores won’t make a major appearance, and his general achey-ness will stay away.
However, in order to avoid a delay in the next chemo treatment like we had last week, they have put him on a medication that will boost his white blood cell count.
I want to take a moment to state how impressed I am with modern medical technology. It is amazing that we, as humans, can recognize, diagnose, and treat cancer, and that we have treatments to ease the side-effects of the treatments. I never cease to be amazed by human ingenuity and expanding medical knowledge. Things that would have killed us just a few years ago are no longer a death sentence, and the treatments are always improving. To those in the medical field – thanks for doing what you do!
As I was saying before that tangent, he will be on a new medication starting tomorrow to boost his white blood cells. Unfortunately, this medication needs to be injected just below the skin, and it causes “bone aches”. We aren’t quite sure what that means, but I guess we’ll find out after we head to the clinic tomorrow to learn how to do the daily injections ourselves at home. I’m glad I decided to accent the red tile in the bathroom instead of ripping it out, because now our “sharp needle receptacle” box will blend right in!
See? Blends right in!