After my blood test in Philadelphia on Tuesday, I was sent home again. Same problem, but a bit worse. The Center there says that my platelet counts were just too low to do chemo without causing potentially serious complications. At this point, they have no options to offer other than wait and see if my body recovers platelets again on its own. And of course, without treatment, this particular type of cancer is aggressive enough to run its course fairly quickly. Their estimate was that I’d have anywhere from three months to a year to live without treatment.
Obviously, we were not happy with that news, so we decided to check with my former oncologist again for more options.
She agreed that doing nothing would certainly mean the same, but her conclusions on why my blood counts were so low are different. Based on my past treatment history, she believes that it is the cancer itself that is consuming the platelet count, and if we hit the cancer with chemotherapy, then we should see my cell count rebound as before. Of course, she also admits that doing chemo with my current levels is something that she hasn’t done before, and carries a number of risks. So we’re left with the choice between doing nothing (which will certainly end with the cancer consuming me), or resuming treatment with the hope that as the cancer cells are killed, my blood levels will begin recovering.
How I wish there was a sure-fire option “three” to select instead, but in the absence of such a plan, we decided to take the chance and resume chemo tomorrow morning.
Friday, March 4 at 8am will be the first of many cycles of treatment. Our prayer is that God will not allow any side effects to create serious complications, and eventually I might find the successes we experienced this past December.
– Sandy K.