It's been a while since I posted here. Chemo session number 4 went off without a hitch. The side effects were more prolonged and I never really felt back to 100%. However, we did manage to make it to a baseball game on the "off-week" Friday night. We lasted until the end of the 7th and left with the scores level. We then listened in the car as the game went into extra innings and ended up at home watching the Giants win on a walk-off homer in the bottom of the 17th!
The fun starts when I show up for my infusion session number 5. It was an early appointment, so I had gone the day before to get the blood work done. I'd noticed that there was a spike in one of the numbers, but I was not too worried. After they had hooked up my port, the pharmacist came over and asked me what I'd been up to and if everything had been OK. I said that I'd been feeling a bit rough for longer than usual and mentioned the baseball game. He asked if I'd been drinking heavily - I replied honestly that I've not had more than a single beer on any one day - although I did have one every day during the off-week.
So they decided that they needed to do more blood tests to verify the results of the previous day. The spike had occurred in the ALT test, which measures liver function (hence the question about alcohol consumption). I waited nervously while they sent off my blood to the labs again and an hour later they came back. The numbers had dropped, but were still way out of the normal range. Dr Akhtar was consulted and his recommendation was to postpone for a week to let the numbers drop. I managed to negotiate this down to the Friday of this week. I'm really not wanting to delay any of the infusion sessions because of our carefully planned and timed trips to Albuquerque and England coming up.
So I spent the rest of the week working from home - I'm not achieving a lot, and it is hard to concentrate on it, but it is good to have my mind occupied with something other than how shit I'm feeling!
Then came Friday. Went along to get the blood work done at 9:00 and waited around for the 10:30 appointment. Test results were not good - the numbers had dropped again, but still were way out of the normal range. Dr Akhtar was consulted again and he nixed the infusion session and ordered a CT scan of my liver. I was able to book this for Friday afternoon at 2:30, which was a relief. So I phoned Jean and dragged her down to pick me up, and then in the afternoon we headed back to Medical Imaging. Once again, Jean helped me put things in perspective and stopped me from going into panic mode! Her influence can't be over stated!
The CT scan was pretty straightforward - but they have to inject iodine into you to give the image contrast and because I have a port they need a qualified nurse there to deal with it. They took a while finding one, but eventually we got started. The nurse recognised me and said that she had been there when they put the port in. When I saw her Bowie tattoo, I remembered her too!
So, now I have to wait until Monday to find out the results of the scan! Dr Akhtar had left for the weekend before the images were available. We've got a phone appointment set for 2:00 Monday. Infusion session number 5 is now provisionally scheduled for next Friday - nearly 2 weeks late! This is going to impact our travel plans, which is annoying, but I guess I should be more concerned about what is causing the abnormal test results! The Infusion nurse said the sometimes the chemo drugs do strange things and that this is the most likely cause. I hope she's right! Monday can't come quickly enough!
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