Well, I’m feeling better today than yesterday: very low-grade nausea, at most, and only mild back pain. These minor symptoms definitely will not get in the way of a wonderful vacation in Pinetop! I can’t wait.
We spent the morning at home getting packed and ready to go to Pinetop immediately after we finish at Piper. We are now sitting in a restaurant, across from Piper, having lunch and waiting for our appointment at 1:00. They drew blood at 11:00, so we should have all the results in time for our 1:00 appointment. If I get chemo today, it will start sometime around 1:30. I’ll then have plenty of time to finish this entry. If my platelet count is too low for chemo, however, I’ll simply indicate as much and cut the blog short so we can hit the road. My preference is to have chemo, but as I said yesterday, it will be okay if we have to delay the start of the 6th and final cycle of this particular regimen. All will be well.
My mountain bike was not ready to take on this trip, so we left our bikes at home. There are bikes at the house where we are staying, so we’ll be able to ride around the streets. We’ll get our exercise doing that, hiking, and running (Cathy). It will be so nice to be outside in such wonderful weather! There is forecast for rain while we are there, so that will give us plenty of good reading and napping weather. And I’m sure they need rain up there as desperately as we need it in Phoenix. I hope we get some rain at home while we are gone … we got a little last night, but mostly the little bit of precipitation is felt today as humidity.
We just got the test results back from my blood work: My platelet count was 137,000, so we are good to go with chemo today. Hooray! And the CA19-9 was 18.8 … it dropped again, from 24 to its current level. The tumor marker has dropped after each cycle. It was in the normal range after the 4th cycle, and it is even further in the normal range after the 5th. I am particularly happy with these results: the tumor is still inactive. This is truly great news. I feel blessed and very fortunate.
Over the past few days, I have been taking Aleve to see if my back pain might reflect an inflammation. It has helped. The pain, when present, is a little less severe. They’ve asked me to stick with this for another week to see how it progresses. As for my nausea: they are going to refer me to a GI physician to see if there might be something else going on with my stomach, such as an ulcer. There is no reason – in terms of my cancer – for me to have these symptoms of pain and nausea. That is the good news. Now, we just need to determine their causes, treat them, and I’ll be feeling as good as my objective data say I should!
I am going to finish this now as the chemo is dripping. Cathy and I should be able to reach Pinetop by early evening … in time for dinner.
I will write more tomorrow, assuming the wi-fi is working … If it isn’t, I may not be able to post another entry until Thursday of next week. In any event, thanks for your continued support. I really appreciate it.