Rebound to Round Two

After a very stressful week, my counts, body, and psyche have recovered enough to start Round 2 of chemotherapy tomorrow on Feb. 4. It seems like the culprit for the hemolytic anemia was the Dapsone. My red blood counts have rebounded to slightly below normal, but my liver is still showing signs of processing destroyed red blood cells and stress with an elevated bilirubin level. The severe fatigue faded away by the end of the week and I bounced back enough to run 30 minutes on Friday and Sunday and not have to spend the rest of the day in bed sleeping to recover. Yes, that's what happened last weekend. Never would I have thought running 30 minutes could and would be so hard to do.

I'll have another blood test before starting treatment tomorrow to make sure everything is OK to proceed. This chemo round is different than the first one. All the same drugs, just different sequences and less days. I am scheduled to have three drugs tomorrow, Rituxin, Fludarabine, and Cyclophosphamide. I just had Rituxin on Day One last time. Then if it goes well, I only have Fludarabine and Cyclophosphamide on Tuesday and Wednesday and won't have a fourth day of chemo.

Even with the trail troll this week of hemolytic anemia, the tumors (which are located in my lymph nodes throughout my body) have continued to get smaller. If you look at my picture on the blog base, you will will see tumors on the side of my neck and under my chin by my left ear. I had tumors on both sides of my neck and under my chin along my jawline. In the picture of this update, the tumors are gone. It's been over 7 1/2 years since I've been without those tumors! That's certainly something to smile about.

One troubling thing is that the shingles have reactivated on my chest and neck. If you remember, I was hospitalized in August for a week due to a serious case of shingles. They have continued to smolder since then and I have been on maintainence anti-viral medicine. Hopefully, this reactivation won't affect my treatment schedule.

Oh, in case you're wondering, cancer treatment is really, really expensive. It pays to have excellent medical insurance, which I am fortunate to have. My first round of chemotherapy including day 5 of the shot in my stomach was $24,000. Yes, that's $24,000. My IVIg treatment last Monday was $6,000. I'll let you do the math. It's no wonder that the Number 1 reason for bankruptcy in the U.S. is medical bills. So please, take my advice, don't skimp on medical insurance. You never know when life might send your health into a tailspin...like when I was diagnosed with leukemia at 38.