Treatment #2 of Round #2 went ok…1/2 done

TL;DR: Treatment #2 is done, I’m 1/2 done. It’s a bit rougher than round 1, but ok. I’m feeling more like myself/better now. So far, no hospital and my counts are good!

Almost 2 weeks ago I had treatment 2 of round 2. It went ok. The Neulasta I think made me less tired but it’s tough managing near constant low grade nausea. (Low grade in the sense that you feel crummy but I’m not really at risk of losing my stomach contents. At least it’s low grade though!? :))

What works for me to manage the nausea (in addition to the multiple meds) is keeping my stomach with something in it so I have to try and eat every couple of hours and I also have been eating a ton of goldfish crackers. I also really didn’t feel myself mentally which I didn’t like at all. That was the hardest part and that made last week particularly tough because there’s nothing you can really do about that. I also got tired of being so tired all I could do was watch TV or read a book. There’s definitely a big difference mentally between having the time to do those things when you “want” to vs. having time do those things because you really don’t have any other option. For someone who normally moves at full throttle and probably some extra, it’s a big shock to operate this way.

From the “stay out of the hospital” standpoint I also had an antibiotic I started taking after about 5 days to help keep infection at bay. Yesterday I convinced my doctor to order a CBC to see where my counts were because I was really tired on Tuesday and had a runny nose and was sneezing a lot. Since these were symptoms I have had when I had low counts I wanted to be sure it wasn’t a low counts situation or if it was I knew that was the case so I could closely monitor it. The good news is the results came through this morning and the counts looked good! So that’s wonderful news and I’m pretty excited about that. I’m guessing my symptoms were instead seasonal allergies as I am reminded that Fall is when they hit me hard; we have had the windows open a lot this week since the weather cooled off a little. (Although it’s back close to 90 today…)

This week I’ve felt more normal but I definitely tire easily. I can really only do 1 set of activities a day. (Today’s activity calling EDD and this blog post…) Last week I also learned to not schedule doctor’s appointments in the week after treatment…I made it through the 2 I had last week (on separate days) but man I don’t want to do that again. It’s too exhausting to get down there and have a proper conversation – I needed to rest pretty much the entire rest of the day after that and I wasn’t even driving myself. (Driving in the 1st week after treatment also didn’t seem to be a good idea…I didn’t feel like I had the reaction time to respond if needed to for accident prevention…back to normal there this week.)

One other interesting thing I’ve noticed is that I am definitely more relaxed which is, I hope, helping with healing. Every time I go to the doctor and they take my blood pressure it’s significantly lower than it was before/usually is. This makes me feel good about listening to the doctor’s advice and taking this time off to heal – it’s at least one sign that it’s the right call and it’s working.

With treatment #2 done, I’m 1/2 done with this round. Not going to lie, I am not excited about the last 2 treatments but there’s not really much to do other than get through it and keep going.

There’s not a whole lot going on right now other than a whole lot of resting and healing…I’m so grateful I have the opportunity to do this for my health, I know I’m lucky to be able to do this.

I hope all of you have a wonderful weekend – thank you for your continued support and encouragement be it via comments here, check-ins, thoughts, prayers, meals, rides, and all the other ways you are all keeping us going…we are continually humbled and grateful for your support!

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