Friday I went in for my "last" chemo appt. To celebrate the end, we pulled Vaughn out of school, had a great lunch and then headed in for the appt with the idea we would be celebrating that night. I had a good convo with my oncologist. We discussed surgery and the possibility that I won't need 6 weeks of radiation (depending on the surgical outcomes and what they find when they open me up. It comes down to whether or not I have "clean margins". Clean margins = no radiation). Then he pulled up my blood counts. A normal White Blood Cell count is 4.0-11 and normal Absolute Neutrophil Count is 1.6-8.3. On Friday my counts were 1.5 and 0.4, respectively. These are not just dangerously low--they are near hospitalization low. Anything under 0.5 for ANC is close to 30% for severe infection/hospitalization/death from a common infection.
To see my counts the lowest they've been at the very end of it all was devastating to say the least. To have to tell Vaughn that we weren't celebrating was the most heartbreaking of it. I lost it. Vaughn lost it. I broke down in the office. I am not ashamed to say that I begged my doctor to let me continue anyway. To have it put off again was one of the most difficult things to go through in all of this. Dr. Yee was empathetic to the situation but firm--too sick to continue. He offered me choices, though: I could say no thanks to my last treatment; I could have two shots (one on Friday and one on Saturday) in an attempt to boost my counts and try to have chemo on Monday. As much as I have wanted to be done, I knew that I would be unable to live with the guilt and fear of not completing my cycles. So I did the shots.
We showed up to the clinic on Monday filled with trepidation. We had been burned too many times in this to expect that my counts would be high enough to continue. No meeting with the doc, just straight upstairs to infusion. Because my counts were so low on Friday, the lab had to manually count my ANC on a slide. The results came back and my WBC count was 19.9! My ANC was also extremely high (can't quite remember). The nurse was impressed! So, I had my last round yesterday!
Look at our shiny heads!
Celebratory cupcakes (the boys picked them out)
So now we wait for surgery. It's been scheduled, rescheduled and rescheduled again. It's finally been set for Monday, April 7th at ass-o'clock 7 o'clock in the morning. More details in another post, including a link for signing up for meal deliveries for interested parties (NO OBLIGATIONS!).
So, on that note, we close the chapter of chemo. Mary OUT.
