Pre-scan Jitters

Monday I go in for my quarterly CT scan to check how the cancer is reacting to the chemo. Usually I have been able to go in with no concerns because all of the signs were saying that the cancer was shrinking. However the last 3 months have been more of a rollercoaster. We have had to drop one of the chemo drugs because the side effects were just too much. I had neuropathy so bad that when I drank tapwater I would get a pins and needles sensation in my throat. The resulting dehydration was a beast. My cancer markers stayed the same for several weeks, but have started to reduce again. The chemo treatment before our trip my platelet levels were almost too low to treat, but after promising to get my levels checked while on vacation they decided to go ahead anyway. The platelet counts came back lower than they were  before chemo so they had me do a second test a couple days later. Still low.

On the other side of the coin, by the time we got back from vacation and did the usual test the day before treatment my platelet levels were higher than they had been in months. Unfortunately, the next time I went in for treatment my premature red blood cells were too low. So I got 3 weeks between treatments which Braden had been trying to talk my doctor into for a while. (He wanted 4, but my doctor would not budge.) We actually talked to a nurse practitioner that week, but she gave us some good news as well. On the x-ray I had done because of some sore ribs (I fell in September) you could not see the spot in my lung that was visible on previous x-rays. Later we found out that my cancer markers had started going down again after remaining the same for several  tests. (Down is good, as the cancer grows the numbers go up.)

I am crossing my fingers that this scan will show good things even though it has been a rocky couple of months.