19 may -- day 2 after 3rd treatment (AKA day 3.2)

1/2way thru! at least, in 3 weeks, after recovery from this cycle, THEN i'll be 1/2way thru. the fun news about this treatment was that the nurse got the IV into a vein with just one try! i swear, needles are the worst part of all this. besides the IV for infusion, i have to go to the lab for a blood draw twice between treatments, once in the middle to see how low blood counts go during nadir, & once at end of recovery, to make sure they have rebounded enuf. if not, oncologist will want to give me a shot of yet another nasty chemical to kickstart blood cell production, & postpone treatment until counts are up again. hoping that doesn't happen. looking good so far.

31 may -- day 3.14

the crash after 3rd treatment was a little harder, but not by much. drFellows still very happy about how well i'm doing, blood counts down a little further than last cycle during nadir, but still not enuf to worry about. yay! going into my good week feeling OK, tho of course i get tired with any exertion.

8 june -- day 4.1

chemo had been going so well, i blithely assumed it would continue to, BUT then what do you know, my white blood cell count fell way too low last week. when i showed up for treatment this morning, dr.F said the lab results from blood draw on friday indicated too low for me to get the treatment. since there was a chance it may have rebounded over the weekend, i went over to the hospital, luckily very close, & had more blood taken, with a STAT request for the results. & yay, white blood cells had indeed recovered enuf ! BUT now it's going to be a problem, cumulative effect, it would happen everytime & even worse, so oboy more meds. i have to go back to eureka everyday for 5 days after treatment to get a shot of neupogen, which will stimulate the bone marrow to produce white blood cells. tuesday i'll still be hi on steroids & can drive myself, but will have to get help for the rest of the week. these are the days of the cycle i've been wanting to just stay in bed, but now i'll have to get up & get dressed & be driven 1/2 hour away to eureka. won't be fun.

13 june - day 4.6

of course the new meds have their own side effects, the one i'm noticing is some bone pain, which claritin takes care of. (!?) this was indeed a bad week, especially day 4, the worst in every cycle but the worst worst this time, blessings on the friend who came to take me for my shot, i was a basket case! the good thing this week was i posted a request on my "lotsahelpinghands" webpage for folks to pickup my young dog boomer & take him for a walk, & friends showed up everyday! wow, making a big difference for both of us. he seems more than willing to go off with anybody...

28 june - day 4.21

yay, thru with 4th cycle, now 2/3 of the way thru with chemo! in a support group meeting, back before i began, someone said "the first one is the worst", but heads around the circle were shaking, most said they got worse each time. my experience has definitely been the "worse each time" kind. it took pretty much 2 whole weeks before i was feeling OK, & the good 3rd week was not quite so good as i've gotten used to. way more fatigued, which was explained by my low red blood cell count, tho not quite low enuf for the ADDITIONAL treatment that would be called for, to stimulate red blood cell production. the neupogen woked well, my white blood cells rebounded beautifully this cycle. dr.F continues to be very happy about how well i'm doing.

i had "open garden" today, saturday, instead of sunday, 'cos this sunday is the garden tour! i'm SO delited it's happening when i'm at my best, i LOVE garden tour. HBGF garden tour