Yesterday, by what feels like the skin of my teeth, I got 3 drug treatment #3, overall treatment #7. I’ll explain. Only 1 more of these particular treatments to go. Woohoo!
In case this is too long, the TL;DR version is: I did get treatment despite some last minute injections and down to the wire bloodwork results (received in the waiting room at City of Hope). I can confirm that Claritin really works for the injection bone pain. I’m a little more tired than I have been, but still not bad. Cancer treatment is a lot of logistics. 🙂 We made yummy croquettes for dinner last weekend since I didn’t feel poorly. Thank you for all you do, we couldn’t do it without you!
And now for the long version…last week the medical team postponed treatment due to my low platelet levels. When the team gave me my lab work for this week it was not marked “stat”. I objected asking what if I needed a neutrophil injection and was told, “No, that won’t happen, you didn’t get treatment this week and your neutrophils are fine now so they should be fine then and that’s the only reason you’d need a stat set of labs.” The logic seemed reasonable…however as you’ll see…it didn’t work hat way. Now I remember the conversation I had with my doctor that the single shot basically lasts just long enough for me to get chemo and then it’s done working.
They’d told me to wait as long as possible on the bloodwork to give the platelets as much time to come up as possible. As I had a different medical commitment scheduled for Tuesday afternoon I decided to keep my 0730 lab work appointment in the morning. It was quick and easy with the appointment. Because the order wasn’t stat the labwork was done overnight Tuesday night. I got a call at about 0900 on Wednesday morning from City of Hope, you need to come in for an injection ASAP because your neutrophils are low and you can’t get treatment on Thursday without it. So, I left work immediately got the injection, and then headed back to work. This meant I had to get stat bloodwork on Thursday morning, day of treatment, vs. Wednesday morning. The stated turnaround time of stat bloodwork is ~4 hours. The lab opens at 0700 and my appointment for chemo was at 1110. This was going to be close. They drew my blood at 0715. (I was 2nd in line at the lab at 0645 and feeling very lucky because I overheard the staff saying that on Wednesday they’d had 15 people in line at 0700 the day before…phew that wasn’t what I had faced!) I expected to have to go to City of Hope and wait for the lab results. I was correct, by the time we left here they hadn’t come in. I was sitting in waiting room texting about whether or not the results had come in when I got the result notification that they had arrived. I checked and they were good. What was funny (also a technology sad) was that my nurse for the day came out to talk to me and said, “we don’t have the results…” and I was like, “You do! They probably came in between the time you checked just now and the walk out to talk to me because they just came in on my phone in your system”…and I showed her the results on my phone. She of course has to have them in her system so that the doctor can sign off. (And my doctor was out sick yesterday so had to sign from home…) I’d say another 5-10 minutes later we were all set. (In other technology observations the system at the lab seems to send the notification that they have the results in their system many hours >12 sometimes than the organization receiving the results…although that’s the email notification so…interesting.)
I got all 3 drugs yesterday. I am so very grateful it worked out even if it was down to the wire! I just want to keep moving!
Given the receipt of all 3 drugs I’m expecting a weekend that’s decidedly less fun…but still handleable. I was more tired than usual on the day of treatment yesterday. Not “I have to go to bed now” tired, but a bit more blobby tired, I could still read a book which was good. Today I slept in a bit more and my first meal was an early lunch. I’m grateful I still usually feel like eating! It’s going to be hard getting my 3 quarts of fluid in because I started about 5 hours later in the day than usual, but I’ll find a way. I think I’ll have to change my strategy a little tomorrow and drink a bit when I get up to take the 1st Zofran of the day. (Alarms and reminders oh my!)
We had another debate about lab urgency yesterday of course. Understandably the nurses are reluctant to order stat labs because of cost. (There is an additional, likely not small, cost to stat labs. I admittedly don’t know what it is since I’ve met my out of pocket maximum thankfully.) It also seems that their system doesn’t allow them to order them and that must be approved by the doctor. Since my doctor is out they couldn’t order the stat labs so they’re trying to reach her today and see about changing that. I’ll call in a little bit to confirm. If not, I’ll take my Tuesday lab and go Monday night as those labs seem to arrive mid-day Tuesday. (At the nurses direction I’ve done this before…we’d prefer the extra 14 hours later to 0700 ish Tuesday am, but…this would allow me to go in Tuesday afternoon for an injection with stat labs Wednesday night so they’d arrive Thursday morning). I’ve concluded that cancer treatment is 1/2 logistics solving.
A note on the injections. I can confirm that the Claritin really works! In the flurry of things yesterday morning I forgot to take the Claritin for the bone pain yesterday morning. (I was also a bit off-kilter/routine because the other injections have been in the afternoon…) Last night I noted some mild bone pain in the evening and remembered that I hadn’t taken the Claritin and so I did. By the time I want to bed it was fine/gone.
We did have a lovely weekend last weekend since there was no treatment. I read some, did some chores that I have been wanting to do. I did a lot of cooking on Saturday. (Probably a little too much if we’re honest…I was pooped by the time we ate the one meant for eating that day at 9:30 pm and shortly went to bed…). The last item was exciting though. (The others were things that I can eat throughout the week…lentil and sausage stew (with veggie and chicken sausage) and a quinoa veggie “salad”)).
My favorite restaurant in LA was The Bazaar by JosĂ© AndrĂ©s. (I know, no pasta in sight here!) It did not survive the pandemic. (Although my heart lept for joy when I read an article about a week ago saying he’s in negations to re-open here in LA). Most of his restaurants are in the DC area although he has some in Las Vegas and Chicago. (Maybe NYC?) Any chance I can, I go eat there. I am never disappointed although it is a “special occasion” type meal. (Which works because I/we don’t get many chances…yes, I have gone by myself…I do actually enjoy the occasional meal out on my own…).
Anyhow, one of my favorite things on the Jaleo and Bazaar menus are the chicken croquettes. They are filled with béchamel, chicken, and Serrano ham, covered in bread crumbs and fried. That is what we made Saturday night.
Mike kindly did the frying because I am a little afraid, but watching him this time I want to try next time…we don’t have room for a deep fryer in our kitchen so we are old school with a pot and a thermometer…I was less scared as the last time we did this we had a gas cooktop and now we have induction…the frying went well although it was amusing as the recipe calls for you to do this in a very small pot. The croquettes are wine cork shaped and a little larger than wine corks and our pot only held 2 at a time, but they fry in about a minute.
They were fabulous! Highly recommend…the recipe is from the JosĂ© AndrĂ©s cookbook Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America which I got from the library and have concluded I will buy…so many yummy things in there. Also a shout out to the local La Espanola where we got our Serrano ham, they have a large selection of Spanish foods and we got some nice cheeses as well. (Mike did a quick run as it’s not too far from us.) We’ve known about them for years but they are also highlighted by JosĂ© AndrĂ©s in his cookbook.)
I/we remain grateful for how well this is all going. Thank you to all of you for your support, prayers, check-ins, meals, rides, everything you are doing for us, we are SO SO grateful and couldn’t be doing this without your support.
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Thank you for taking time to keep up with us and see how we’re doing as well as all the help!  Because, I think like me, much of the world does nearly everything on their phones…I’m adding this note to the end of posts to make website navigation easier if you are on a phone.  If you’d like to read other journal entries, please click here (oldest post is at the bottom of the page).  There’s also a “hamburger” menu in the top right of the webpage that can help you navigate between the journal, ways to help page, stay in touch, and welcome pages.   Please know that reading this page and thinking of us is help!  Thank you for your support in all forms! If you have any issues, please email [email protected].
YOU are *inspiring*, Spartacus!
Kitchen note: One trip to Aldi a long time ago, I came across a tiny deep fryer. It was super cheap, maybe less than $20. Perhaps this would work for your kitchen? We still have to store it, under the counter with the instapot, but it takes up only a bit of space. We buy canola oil from Costco.
Hi Kat, just caught up with your progress, thanks for keeping the site updated. Have been thinking of you since I came back from driving to MI to see my parents. Glad to read your health is on the upturn curve :).