We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and celebrated the great news we received the day before. We toasted the treatment, the doctors, and the love and support we receive everyday. It was a wonderful night to be with our family and revel in the joy of the clean scans.
The high from the night continued through until the next morning when we showed up for treatment at Swedish. Anna got a blood draw for her counts and we waited for treatment to start. After a while, a nurse returned to tell us that her white blood cell count was borderline but low and that she would have to check with the doctor on call to see if we could administer treatment. We waited, and waited, and finally she returned only to tell us that we would have to go back home to try to get Anna’s counts back up. Anna would have to give herself the Granix shots until Monday and we would come back to check her counts and hopefully get treatment. The nurse wasn’t sure if this would be possible and told us that we may have to skip a treatment and tack it on to the end. Not good news.
We returned home pretty down. This was the first time since the diagnosis that the plan had changed or we had received anything but promising news during treatment. It put a damper on the joy of finding clean scans. The treatment schedule has Anna finishing her last chemo treatment on the fourth of March, two weeks and two days before her 30th birthday. This has been our target date for things getting back to normal, for us to celebrate a big birthday and being cancer-free. If the treatment got extended two weeks, Anna would be feeling really crummy on her birthday. While not earth shattering, it is hard to think about the end date getting pushed back. We also use that birthday as a goal to get to, a day that we look forward to when the treatment starts to wear Anna down.
Anna, as I have said before, is a strong lady. By Saturday morning she was back in gear and we moved beyond the news and back into life.
Fashionably relaxed, even in chemo.
Today, we are sitting in the chemo ward of Swedish. Anna is getting her treatment, and we are back on track. We are thankful that her blood counts went right back up and she is able to continue as before. We won’t be changing the schedule, we will be done before that birthday, and we are going to party like its… March 20th 2016.
The ups and downs of this process are probably the most unexpected part for me. I knew that it would be hard but didn’t realize how much I would have to be happy about. The news of Anna’s diagnosis was devastating but the initial prognosis from Dr. Kaplan gave us immeasurable hope. The clean scans from last week gave us boundless joy but being turned away from an expected treatment and possibly extending the process, was a real bummer. Being back on track gives us determination and fortitude to finish the task.
She may be small but she is mighty.
The mighty one and her sidekick.