Had a blood draw yesterday. My white blood cell count is through the roof. As the nurse explained to me, the shot they were giving me (Neupogen) is basically a form of “sterillized Ecoli. It comes into the body and the WBC that are present say, “WHOAH! INTRUDER!!! GATHER THE TROOPS! LET’S GO GET IT!!!” This makes the WBC all exited and they start mulitplying like crazy to add to their army of immunity. This gives the body a boost in WBC for a time. Once the shots are no longer given, the WBC start to die off by the thousands every 36 hours, and eventually stabilize at a regular level between 1000 to 11,000.

So last week my WBC count dropped below 1000, as it was 800. I got three shots three days in a row: two in my left arm which made the entire left side of my chest ache constantly, and once in my belly which only made my hips a little tingly for the better part of one day. (I later learned that the pain in the chest is caused by the shot because, as adults, we carry more blood in the bones in our chest -ribs, sternum, etc.- which begin to ache as that blood in those bones work on making new WBC. It felt sort of how I thought a heart attack may feel so I opted for my last shot to be in my belly. The pain is mostly gone by now.) As of yesterday evening, my WBC is 28,000. Yep. You read that right. Twenty eight thousand! It will drop significantly every day this week but by Friday I should level out at around 7000 WBC. They always do a blood test just prior to getting CAKE so we’ll see. But everyone thinks it shouldn’t be a problem and that I should be able to get chemo this Friday. WHEW!

I do feel better. I’ve spent the last two days out and about. I’ve decided to get back into the things I’ve always loved - mostly my arts and crafts. We bought a sewing machine over the weekend (I didn’t stay homebound after all…I went shopping on the way home from the hospital both days over the weekend! But I washed my hands constantly and I was very cautious about what I touched, ate, etc.). With the sewing machine we get a free sewing class that we’ll take together in a couple weeks. I look forward to that. I’m just planning things as usual and if something comes up (another doc appointment or illness or whatnot) then I’ll change or reschedule things accordingly. But I’m tired of putting my life on hold for this illness. I’m learning to LIVE with it.

Scarlett is sick. I had to take her to the vet yesterday because she’s been doing this weird coughing thing that sort of sounds like an asthma attack. The doc said everything sounded and looked fine and was just going to send her home with an antihisthimine but then he suggested we do a white blood cell count just to make sure she’s not fighting some kind of infection. At first I wasn’t going to do the test but when I found out it was less expensive than I had expected and something in my gut kept reminding me of my recent experience with WBC, I went ahead with the test after all. Ten minutes later we found out her WBC was low (not significantly low like mine but enough to signal that she is fighting some sort of infection) and she needed antibiotics in addition to the allergy meds. She’s doing fine now. You should see us trying to shove the pills down her throat. If we just put them in her mouth or try to sneak them in with some cheese, she just spits them out no matter what. So we literally have to hold her tight and shove them down her throat and close her mouth in order for her to swallow them. It’s great fun let me tell you! But she has lost none of her spunk though maybe she sleeps a bit more from the medicines she’s on. She’ll be fine I’m sure.

Here’s a little reminder for those of you who were wondering: I’m having a CAT scan this afternoon (the nurse said I don’t have to drink the barium afterall! HORRAY!). THE CAT SCAN RESULTS ARE NOT EXPECTED UNTIL PROBABLY EARLY NEXT WEEK. CAT scans take about a week to get back because they are constantly running patients through there and they have thousands of patients to work on. Unless it’s an emergency, which mine is definitely not, it takes that long to have the radiologist read and report the results to the doctor. In this case, Dr. Gupta (aka Dr. Doom and Gloom - the guy who did the embolization) ordered the test so he will get the results and his nurse (aka Nurse Doom and Gloom aka Nurse Pity as she always speaks to me as if I’m literally at death’s door and she feels so sorry for me, not to mention she calls me “AbERgail”) will contact me with a basic run down of the results. He’ll also get the results to Dr. Kane. It is entirely possible that either of these doctors will want me to come to their offices and meet with them to review the results but again, it won’t be for at least a week.

Additionally, nobody involved expects the results of the CAT scan to show us anything significantly different than before. The purpose of this test is to serve as a “baseline” image since this will be the first one with that magical contrast that was injected directly into the tumor during the embolization. This contrast is supposed to give us a much clearer picture of the exact tumor itself, better than we had seen in previous images. In that respect, it could possibly end up looking BIGGER than it has previously. No one has told me this, I just figured that part out on my own. More than likely it will just look the same as before. All my doctors agree that it’s too early to see a significant change in size in the tumor just yet, especially with the recent chemo set back I’ve had. So please don’t get too excited and anxious about this CAT scan — I’m certainly not.

You may wonder why we can get blood test results back so quickly while we have to wait so long for CAT scan results. Well, I’m not exactly sure why but I believe it’s a combination of things. Such as, it really depends on what you’re testing for in the blood tests. When I had “cultures” done a few months ago to rule out Hepatitis and whatnot, it took over a week because they had to literally grow some junk in my blood. Yuck. Yesterday, I learned that testing for a WBC count takes about a half hour, whereas a CBC (the overall blood condition test which also tells us about my liver, kidney and organ functions) takes almost an hour (my liver function is still good, btw). The hormone receptor test Kane did on my tumor a couple weeks ago took a couple of days to get back results. The testing mechanisms for blood are quite different than having a radiologist read and interpret CAT scan images. Some blood tests can just be run through a machine, with the answers spitting out at the other end. Whereas an actualy person, the radiologist, has to pull from a stack of hundreds of patients’ CAT scans to read, interpret, and report the images. I don’t know how many radiologists they have on campus but it probably is no more than three or four, if that many.

So we won’t “KNOW ANYTHING” until next week some time. In the meantime, let’s all just go about our business as usual and not get too excited in anticipating the results, ok? That would definintely take a load of worry off our backs.

Dad will be here shortly to take me to the hospital for the test and then I visit with Kane afterwards (again, probably won’t hear anything new from her but I’ll let you know if anything interesting comes up). Did you know that today will be my FIFTH day in a row going to that damned hospital?! I get tomorrow and Thursday off and then I’m back there again on Friday for more chemo! OH JOY! Hehehe

See ya later!