June 25 update

I went to the cancer center today for what was supposed to be day 8 of my chemo cycle and I found out that my White Blood Cell count was very low (was at 500 and needed to be at 1500 for treatment to occur) and my hemoglobin was also low.  It was too late to be able to do the transfusion today so I have to go back tomorrow morning.  I am sooooo tired right now and the low RBC count probably has a lot to do with it.  I just hope it starts going better.

I am also tired of having to do the Lovenox shots every night, but hopefully that will help with the blood clots and the swelling and whatever else it's supposed to help with.  My ankle is so swollen and hurts so bad it is ridiculous.  And the oxygen tank I have to haul around is a royal pain!

In the hospital...again

Once again, I have been admitted to the hospital a week after the second treatment in the cycle.  This time, I had been feeling bad for several days but didn't worry about it because I didn't have a fever at all.  On Saturday I went to a class all day and was able to eat normally and on Sunday I started feeling bad but was able to eat and drink.  On Monday morning I ate breakfast then tried to take my medicine but gagged on a "horsepill" and lost my breakfast.  After that I only took a few sips of water and ate one bagel in the evening.  I did the same thing on Tuesday.  I was supposed to have a CT scan Tuesday but was not able to drink the contrast.  I went to the clinic on Wednesday to get fluids and they did an abdominal x-ray and the doctor told me that I needed to go to the hospital to get potassium and magnesium infusions and much more fluids.  They also checked me for c-diff and I was positive.  Now the nursing staff only comes in when the absolutely have to and they wear plastic gowns and gloves and if I leave the room I have to do the same.  My doctor had talked about sending me home today, but the way I feel right now, I would probably be back in here before you know it.  Oh well...

March 5, 2012 update

I came to the hospital this morning expecting to get my next cisplatin treatment but also expecting to have my counts to low for the treatment to occur.  I was right about that.  I got here about 8 this morning and somehow they didn't have me in the computer but the floor was expecting me.  I had to wait for the orders to get here before they could even do the labs.  After the orders arrived, they found that I didn't have an armband (they told me to come up rather than waiting) so I had to wait for that to get up here.  They finally accessed my port close to 10 and drew the labs.  About an hour later the nurse came in and told me the counts were too low so I probably wouldn't have a treatment, but that the resident on call wanted to talk to me before I left.  I am still waiting over two hours later.  Oh well...Hopefully next week will go better when I come back to try again.

Back on the roller coaster!

I thought that I was going to be free of problems for a while, but I am back in chemo again.  I was in the hospital in December with a bowel obstruction and after that the doctor started talking about chemo again.  I kept resisting the idea because I thought he was just saying that because I was having the obstruction.  But when I actually met with him to discuss it, he explained that the obstruction might have been caused by the cancer or it could have been something else.  It had more to do with the abnormal pap and the PET scan results than the hospital stay.

I had the first round with Gemzar in late January, and was supposed to have the second round with both Gemzar and Cisplatin on my birthday except that my white blood cell count was too low.  So I was in the hospital last Tuesday getting that done because they decided to do the Cisplatin by desensitization because it is a cousin to the Carboplatin I reacted to last year.  I didn't have a problem then, but I wound up getting a UTI and kidney infection by the weekend.  Now I am sitting in the hospital again hoping that things start going better for me soon.  I am waiting on test results from the labs they did a couple of hours ago.  Those were ordered after the doctor saw the results from the chest xray and kidney ultrasound they did this morning.

Although this isn't the best picture in the world, it does show how I look now.  I am currently in treatment using temoxefen (not sure of spelling) and I find that I hurt a lot less.  I hope it is effective so I don't have to go into chemo again.  I will see in another two weeks.

My new website

I have just created a new website through MyLifeLine and that supports cancer survivors.  Feel free to check out the site.  It is a work in progress, but there are a series of pictures showing how I have changed over the last six months as well as having information provided by the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance.  Come by and sign my guestbook and learn more!  https://www.mylifeline.org/daeckardt/?page=welcome.cfm

Life goes on...

It has been three months since my last chemo session.  I thought everything was going well at first, but seven weeks ago, my numbers (ca-125, the cancer tumor marker) started going up.  At that time it had only gone up by 10 points and it was "wait and see".  They did another test last Monday and it had gone from 41 to 79.  When the doctor gave me that information, she told me that any time it doubles from the lowest point she becomes concerned.  Now I am scheduled for a CT scan next Tuesday and to get the results on Wednesday, but when I went to pick up the contrast they told me the insurance may require me to wait for an additional day. That would not be good because my doctor only has clinics on Monday and Wednesday but I will do whatever I have to.  I just hope that the necessary treatment is not too bad because I have already been through so much. But I look at it this way...When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  I'm just tired of all the lemons I have been getting.