Monday February 14, 2011

Hi everyone. New news after this past visit with Dr. Te. I have felt things changing over the past 3 months and knew things have been going on, just from the way I have felt. The dizziness rarely goes away and can be annoying. I have been so much more fatigued as well. Things that didn't tire me out a few months ago, are now tiring me. When I have to sit in my car and rest between Costco and Walmart, I know something is up. I have also had the "night sweats" that come along with cancer sometimes. Poor Roger. I have tried to deal with this symptom without disrupting his life too much. I put down extra linens on my side of the bed at bedtime, and shed them as the night goes on. That gets quite bothersome and not very peaceful. Also I have started having random fevers that are not associated with any sickness.

So as Roger and I met with Dr. Te and his nurse practitioner, Kay, I let them know the things that had been changing. I also had my latest labs drawn and had the results. My white count is up from last time, my lymphocytes are up, and my neutrophils, which have always been in the normal range, are now high and out of the normal range. That's a new one, I will have to find out what it means.

So after taking the whole picture into account, Dr. Te said it's time to start treatment. He wants to get another CT scan and see if my internal nodes have changed. The ones I can feel on my neck, head, clavicle, armpit, and jaw, are not huge, but they have grown. I know because I tend to feel them every day hoping they are gone:) Then he wants to get a bone marrow biopsy too to see how involved the bone marrow is. The nurse explained to to me like this: There are cancerous white cells that I produce. These are created in the bone marrow then go on their merry way. Instead of fighting off germs and then dying a normal death like a normal white blood cell would do, they don't fight anything, then don't die. So they are left to just float around and do no good. They can either stay in the bloodstream, gather in nodes, or push out the good red blood cells from the marrow. Or they can do all three. It is different in everyone's case. We know it is in my blood from my blood tests, we know I have some amount in nodes because we can feel them. So once he finds out how much, if any is in the bone marrow, he will have a baseline to start treatment from. And he will know how many cycles of chemo can be expected to get rid of it. (Usually 6).

So it looks like I will probably be making more use of this post for a while and will hopefully keep everyone updated. My CT is on February 21st and I meet with Dr. Te on the 24th. I am unclear if this is the day of my bone marrow biopsy, but I think it will be. So as soon as I know more, I will pass it one. Thanks everyone for your love and prayers, I do feel them.

I wrote Mandy a letter she should be getting tomorrow. And Roger talked to her mission president this morning just to let him know she might need someone to talk to. President Christiansen says he and Mandy are close and that he will take care of her. Such good news to hear that she will be in good hands.