Last Friday, December 6th, we headed to Cancer Care for our pre-chemo blood check, with bags in tow ready to be admitted. We were surprised when the doctor walked into the room and told us that Justin's neutrophils were too low to proceed with chemo. His counts were .5 and need to be at least 1.0 in order to undergo chemo. We, along with the doctor, were perplexed as to why his counts were so low this time around. Every other time they have recovered so quickly and treatments have never been delayed. Justin had received a new drug with his last round of chemo and Justin's oncologist thought that it could be a possibility that his body was reacting to the drug in this way. We were discussing this possibility and the fact that Justin had never reacted this way with previous chemo treatments, when a thought popped into my head. Justin had received the flu shot the previous week. When I reminded the doctor of this, he said that this must be the reason for the low counts. He said it made perfect sense. The only thing we could do was wait until his counts came back up to the appropriate level on their own. This would only be remedied by time. Chemo was not the only thing put on hold though, however. Justin was supposed to start radiation treatments on Friday as well. The decision was made to delay the start of radiation until his next round of chemo was to start, which would hopefully be today.
We again had bags packed and ready for admission this morning at our Cancer Care appointment. I was sure that this would be the day. His counts had to be up. They always recovered so quickly in the past; surely these extra 4 days would do the trick. When the nurse came in and told us that his counts were still too low (.58) I felt deflated. I was confused. I was troubled. My mind started it's journey to that place. That place that I dread. The place where the fear of the unknown takes over. Was this something I should be concerned about? Why is this happening? Things have been going so well. Why now? The doctor has no answers. He can only speculate, as we do. It may be the new drug, the flu shot or a combination of the two. He says he has seen this happen with other patients. Sometimes, he says, their counts can take weeks to recover but with Justin's history this is unexpected. So, again we wait. And I wonder.
The decision was made today, however, to begin his radiation therapy. They didn't want to hold off any longer, not knowing when the next round of chemo would begin. Justin laid down on a 'table' in the form that they made of his body the week before. They took an x-ray. Trevor and I were able to watch in the 'control room' where they pushed buttons on a computer and matched his previous CT scans with the x-ray they just took. The computer automatically adjusted his position on the table 2 mm. It is that precise. We watched on a screen as the machine moved around Justin's body 360 degrees directing the radiation exactly where it needs to go. In a matter of minutes, it was over.
Justin will have a total of 25 sessions of radiation. One down, 24 to go. This means every day, Monday to Friday, for the next five weeks or so we will make the trek down to Cancer Care on top of our regular clinic appointments. Friday we go back for blood work to see if his counts are improved and he is able to undergo the next round of chemo.
The past few days have been a little unsettling. I feel like I'm being taught a lesson. Things have been going so well with Justin, maybe too well. Maybe I've been taking his 'wellness' for granted. I never imagined that we would be in this situation. Other patients have had their treatments delayed for one reason or another, but that doesn't happen to us. While I don't think that this is anything serious, it causes me concern because I don't know. And it's that unknown that scares me.
No comments:
Post a Comment