[Cancer]
[cancer] Thinking through chemofail
Yesterday’s failure of chemotherapy was annoying at a number of levels.
In the simplest terms, at a minimum this problem extends by a week the amount of time I get to spend being sick and sickly.
It also is a poor harbinger of the course of chemo to come. This is (or was) only session three of twelve for my FOLFIRI course. On FOLFOX I got through all twelve without ever hitting the wall.
The drop in my neutrophils was precipitous, almost 90% in a two-week span. That seems spooky fast to me. They’re planning to add something called Neulasta to my mix at the next infusion round, which will supposedly take care of this, but, wow.
I’m also very unhappy about how this is affecting my summer plans. As things stand now, my July trip to Omaha with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=1){kind=small}
the_child
I have written my doctor and asked if we can break after 3 sessions, so my pattern would be 3/cut/9 instead of 4/cut/8 as currently planned. If there’s only a nominal difference in outcomes between the two, the quality-of-life benefits of the change would be worth it to me. As a result, I have not yet contacted the airline about canceling my trip. Going to let this ride a little.
The dominoes, they topple. The ironic part is that I have made no plans whatsoever for the fall. Any of the fall infusion sessions could have slipped, and I would have just said, “Huh.”
This is another situation where cancer just steals from me the things I care about. All three trips this summer are in danger because of this issue. I am helpless in the face of the problem, completely at the mercy of the disease. This makes me angry and very frustrated. Cancer has already stolen so much from me, now the thief returns for another round of stripping from me those things I hold dear.
Posted: 5:54 am Sat June 11 2011 |
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You are reading the blog of Jay Lake, speculative fiction writer and author of hundreds of short stories, many novels, and winner of the John W. Campbell Award.
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Stevo Darkly
June 11th, 2011 at 8:26 pmI hate that your plans are up in the air now. But all your friends and fans are with you.