Had my white blood cell (WBC) count checked this morning and it came out to be 3300, which is back in the safe range. This means I get to continue my radiation treatments without any delays and that I should be good to go for my last chemo treatment on Monday. This is pretty much as Dr. I had predicted on Monday but it's good to see.
--Dr. D
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Monday, November 20, 2006
7 Down, 1 To Go ...
So today I started session 4, round 1. It was a long day as it started at 8 and didn't end until 6. I started by going to radiation in the morning. On Monday, in addition to my radiation treatment, I have to go for bloodwork, and then for a consultation w/my radiation oncologist Dr M. Today, I asked Dr M. why I was having a total of 28 treatments as opposed to, say, 25 or 30 or some other number. He explained that there a point at which the exposure to radiation no longer helps and actually starts making things worse and that they had empirically determined 28 to be the best over a number of years of treaments. A few years ago a comprehensive, nation-wide study was run where half the patients were given 28 days of treatment and the other half were given an additional 20% (i.e. 5) treatments and that the people with the addittional treatments did no better, in fact somewhat worse, than the patients w/the 28 treatments. I asked Dr. M. if he had a citation for the study and it turns out that he ran that study - yet another impressive guy on my team. Overall, for the radition treatments, my throat still feels a bit sore but it hasn't really gotten worse and the fatigue, while there, hasn't been overpowering. Dr M. says that I'm tolerating the radiation well and fatigue in the last week is likely to be my biggest problem.
When I finished w/Dr M., I headed to the other MSKCC campus where I have chemo administered and met w/my oncologist Dr I. The bad news is that my white blood cell count has fallen to 1200. The good news is that it wasn't so low that they couldn't administer chemo and Dr I. expects that it should start trending up. However, I have to go in on Wed morning to have the white blood cell count checked again and if it hasn't improved, they will start me on Neupogen, the drug the use for increasing white blood cell counts. By doing so, my white blood cell count should be fully restored by next Monday so that I can get my final chemo treatment on schedule. I may have to hold off on radiation treatments for a day or two but I'm already scheduled to have Thursday off from it anyway so it shouldn't make much of a difference overall and doesn't affect the efficacy of the treatments (I still have to get the full 28 treatements, so it means tacking on another day on at the end). Other than that, all of my vitals look really good. I gained back the weight I lost in the last session of chemo and my hair seems to be coming back (it's growing in faster, thicker and less patchy since the last time I had it shaved). Afterwards, I got all three meds this week - the 2 chemos and the avastin. Takes a while longer because they have to prepare the drugs after I've met w/Dr I. and then administer them all. Luckily, I had a good book w/me (thanks Mike).
This weekend was a lot of fun. The Drowsy Chaperon was good, particularly the narrator, but I have to admit, I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I enjoyed Spamalot. On Saturday, Min and I went to see Urinetown as performed by the strollers - it was head and hands above other musicals I've seen staged by the strollers before; all of the singers were fantastic, the choreography (always our weakest point) was way beyond anything we've been able to do in the past, the orchestra was outstanding and kept to a sound level that didn't overpower the cast, and the cast was miked w/o any technical glitches. The biggest problem is what musical to follow that up w/next year - the bar has been raised pretty high. When I got to the theatre, I picked up our tickets and sat down to wait for the doors to open; members of the strollers kept walking past w/o recognizing me and I realized that they hadn't seen me since I shaved my head so I started introducing myself which resulted in a lot of shocked looks :). Went to the cast party afterwards but could only stay for a little while because we had to catch the last train back. Sunday, I slept late and then went out to brunch w/Min to a place that was a major improvement over the 1-fish, 2-fish experience and spent the rest of the day mostly lounging around and resting up for today. All-in-all a very pleasent weekend.
until later,
--Dr. D
When I finished w/Dr M., I headed to the other MSKCC campus where I have chemo administered and met w/my oncologist Dr I. The bad news is that my white blood cell count has fallen to 1200. The good news is that it wasn't so low that they couldn't administer chemo and Dr I. expects that it should start trending up. However, I have to go in on Wed morning to have the white blood cell count checked again and if it hasn't improved, they will start me on Neupogen, the drug the use for increasing white blood cell counts. By doing so, my white blood cell count should be fully restored by next Monday so that I can get my final chemo treatment on schedule. I may have to hold off on radiation treatments for a day or two but I'm already scheduled to have Thursday off from it anyway so it shouldn't make much of a difference overall and doesn't affect the efficacy of the treatments (I still have to get the full 28 treatements, so it means tacking on another day on at the end). Other than that, all of my vitals look really good. I gained back the weight I lost in the last session of chemo and my hair seems to be coming back (it's growing in faster, thicker and less patchy since the last time I had it shaved). Afterwards, I got all three meds this week - the 2 chemos and the avastin. Takes a while longer because they have to prepare the drugs after I've met w/Dr I. and then administer them all. Luckily, I had a good book w/me (thanks Mike).
This weekend was a lot of fun. The Drowsy Chaperon was good, particularly the narrator, but I have to admit, I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I enjoyed Spamalot. On Saturday, Min and I went to see Urinetown as performed by the strollers - it was head and hands above other musicals I've seen staged by the strollers before; all of the singers were fantastic, the choreography (always our weakest point) was way beyond anything we've been able to do in the past, the orchestra was outstanding and kept to a sound level that didn't overpower the cast, and the cast was miked w/o any technical glitches. The biggest problem is what musical to follow that up w/next year - the bar has been raised pretty high. When I got to the theatre, I picked up our tickets and sat down to wait for the doors to open; members of the strollers kept walking past w/o recognizing me and I realized that they hadn't seen me since I shaved my head so I started introducing myself which resulted in a lot of shocked looks :). Went to the cast party afterwards but could only stay for a little while because we had to catch the last train back. Sunday, I slept late and then went out to brunch w/Min to a place that was a major improvement over the 1-fish, 2-fish experience and spent the rest of the day mostly lounging around and resting up for today. All-in-all a very pleasent weekend.
until later,
--Dr. D
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