Round 4 Begins

Today I drove myself to my appointment. That was a big accomplishment for me as I have been having to force myself to go to the chemo session. Today was different as I didn't need any one to make sure that I got there. It wasn't easy but I got there. I still hold out hope that one day there will be something different to treat this cancer with but for now the chemo seems to be working. My hope ran high this past week when some ladies gave me more information about diet ect. that supposedly was given out by John Hopkins. They have a wonderful cancer treatment facility so I thought I could trust the information. I went to their web site and found out that the information I was given was an e-mail hoax and Johns Hopkins posted their rebuttal. There is also another hoax that has been circulating since 2004 that they did not publish.That one is about the release of dioxins from plastic products when they are heated.Any one wishing to know more please go to http://hopkinskimmelcancercenter.org/index.cfm/cID/1684/mpa
The internet can be a wonderful tool to find information on but when people publish misleading or false information it sure can be a huge let down. My hopes were dashed to pieces as I read what they had to say.

God offers me hope that is true and never changes,He will never let me down and right now He is holding and supporting me.

Round three of chemo went real well! No sore bowels, no nausea, no loose stools, no sore mouth, no infections, just some tingling sensations in my finger tips. That is from the Vincritine, which causes neuropathy. Hopefully that will go away and not become permanent.

My lab work from today showed that my white blood count is continuing to drop. It is down to 3.6. When it reaches 1.5 I will have to start wearing a mask. The number of Neutrophils has also dropped. They are down to 2.8 and if they go down to 1.0 I will also have to wear a mask. RDW ( not sure what that is) is high. The nurse was going to print me out a paper explaining all of these tests but it didn't get done. I think I can find the translation of them at some of the Lymphoma sites and so I will try to pull that up before I go on with the rest of the results. I know that my glucose levels were high but that doesn't really concern me as I had just polished off a big breakfast before going to my appointment. The nurse said that if they start getting concerned about diabetes ( my mom developed her diabetes after her cancer treatments)they will have me do a fasting lab. One of the liver function (LD)tests was high and the platelet morphology was abnormal.

For now, I made it through the fourth dose of chemo and I have my usual headache but it isn't anything major. I didn't get dizzy or light-headed this time but I am definitely tired. A nap is in order. Next week, perhaps on Thursday, I will have another CT to find out how much more this tumor has shrunk. I will likely see Dr. Oken after that. If it has shrunk enough I may start on the Rituxan with the next round of chemo therapy. Here's hoping that everything goes as well as it did the last round. My blood isn't too thin so that is two times in a row now! I hope that trend continues too!