Good News, Bad News, Good News

Day 106

August seems to have rolled on in and right over me. What started out as excited anticipation of my last two major chemo cycles, in an instant, dissipated into thin-air. I had just passionately presented my case for returning to school full time this semester. As I saw it, there was no reason to put it off. I had been living outside of normal for months now, and I was anxious to get back to anything that resembled my old life, B.C. I was certain that I could handle the workload, and although my doctor was noncommittal, and my husband argued against the idea, I smugly believed that I would win the discussion. What was there to dispute?

At my 5^th cycle appointment, we also carried on, yet another conversation concerning reducing the dosage of my most toxic chemo drug. In previous discussions, I had been resistant to change anything that I believed could have possibly been a contributing factor to our forward progress. Why fool with success? I proposed, that since I was the one who had to deal with the side effects, as well as the end results, my vote should carry more weight. I had won the war of words three weeks before, and now, I believed I had even more ammunition. God had been very, very good to me, and thankfully, my latest scans had been encouraging; no new tumors, and those that were pre-existing were continuing to decrease in size. After only four cycles, my new tumor marker numbers were smile inducing, having dropped from a high of close to 400, to a new low nearer 90 . I could never have imagined these results when we began down this path, and I didn’t want anything to stop the roll I was on.

This time however, I was not to get my way. The only up side I could see was that I could accept the logic behind the change. My oncologist was determined to minimally reduce my most caustic chemo in order to spare me long-term implications. His tact was explained, as changing our focus from a sprint to a marathon. He didn’t want me to win the sprint, but loose the marathon due to depletion of valuable resources, such as bone marrow. I could find some level of agreement there. After months of operating with a short sighted view, he was prepared to visit the possibility that we may be dealing with this as a chronic issue, many years from now. I was unhappy with the reduction, but thrilled, and thankful to be thinking that we were now possibly talking in years. 

And so, began my 5^th cycle. We were reducing my harshest drug, but looking farther out into the future. It was a deal I could live with. That day chemo clinic had a happy feeling running through it with a lot of chatter, and laughing going on in the midst of our group poisoning. It was not lost on me that cancer patients, as a group, are an unusually pleasant, caring, and happy lot. Whether it is our common struggle, or the harsh fact that we have all been given a big heads up to the precarious nature of life, it seems that each of them is more concerned by the patient next to them than themselves.

I had worked through all of my pre-treatments, received my first bag of chemo, and was beginning to work on my second, when I began to experience an odd sensation. Something was going terribly wrong, as within minutes, I had gone from light-hearted chatter to struggling to maintain consciousness.  I heard my nurse declare that she could not find my blood pressure, not comforting words to hear as you fight to stay cognizant. I have no memory of my short trip to the emergency room, nor most of my stay there. The fog cleared a few days later, by then, I had become a guest of St. E. The plan was for me to be there a few more days. I could deal with that, but by Sunday afternoon, it became apparent that something had changed. Walking across the room caused extreme shortness of breath, and inexplicitly I began setting off my cardiac monitors. After a seemingly endless night, testing revealed a pulmonary embolus. Add five more days to my stay, two new drugs to the mix, and as the oncologist correctly stated, a lot of paperwork for the clinical trial.

Throughout the entire ordeal, my main concern remained whether I would be able to continue in my clinical trial or whether my detour had violated the study’s protocol. Everyone I spoke to seemed to have another opinion as to whether I could continue. Emails, phone calls, and paperwork literally flew around the world as the determination was made, and subsequently altered, and adjusted. Finally, a week after our adventure had began, I was given permission to restart my trial drug. My understanding is that I may move forward, but can not make up lost time, however, it seems that this may be open to interpretation from the powers that be. Never the less, I am happy to be home, regaining my strength, and settling back into my routine. I cannot thank my family and friends enough for their outpouring of caring, prayers, and support. I am hopeful that we can continue on in an uneventful fashion from here on out. I’ll do my best not to incorporate so much drama into future cycles. Fingers crossed.