Good news!! We got through a whole week without any real major issues! Here is how the week went since my last posting:
All last weekend, even though we were hoping for a nice drug-free weekend and Brian feeling well; it didn't turn out that way. He was not feeling well at all and we were both starting to worry that things were not going as we had hoped. We went on Monday to the chemo clinic for Chemo day #2 but when we told them he had not been well over the weekend, they did not want to give the chemo. They also noticed that his sodium level was dangerously low and they immediately hooked him up to IV Saline for the whole day on Monday. Chemo was cancelled but we were there until well after 5 o'clock and the doctor (filling in for our doctor who was on vacation), said we would have to return tomorrow and have the sodium checked again and decide whether chemo was a go. We returned Tuesday and it had come up a bit but not enough; so IV Saline again, this time only for 2 hours and then they gave the okay for chemo. Brian was starting to feel a bit better though so that was a good thing. We then had to return again on Wednesday for blood work. Yet, again, the sodium was not high enough and the doctor wanted another 4 hour IV saline done, so for us another full day at the hospital! They went over with Brian that he needed to continue to take in a fair amount of fluid but not necessarily just water, he needed some Gatorade which has sodium in it (but not too much as his potassium was high), eat "potato chips" or anything with high salt - first time ever a doctor has recommended eating "junk food" and generally take in other fluids along with the usual amount of water you should take in a day. So we had a break on Thursday with no appointments and Brian did what he was told - took in a lot of fluid - he counted it this time and it was approximately 125 ounces of fluid he took in on Thursday alone! Needless to say he was running to the bathroom a lot! He was really starting to feel good though, he was getting back to his normal self again.
He had absolutely no side effects (yet) from the chemo! So we had one last blood work appointment for this week which was today. This blood work was to check his sodium level and also to see how much his neutrophils (white count) may have dropped due to the chemo. As you all may remember, in the first chemo round, four days later Brian had lost all his neutrophils and ended up in hospital. So after the blood work, we waited for the results and all his counts came back normal! We were ecstatic to say the least! His sodium had risen quite nicely from a low of 126 to now 135; his neutrophil count was 9 which apparently is a little above normal so he was good to go for the weekend AND he did not need to have the neupogen injection which was the plan for today if his neutrophils were dangerously low.
So all in all that was a great week for us, other than the time spent at K-W, we can handle that - better than being admitted to hospital. They certainly did keep an eye on things this time. Brian is feeling good and we decided that we would go to the Keg tonight for dinner in celebration. Now we have a whole three days of Brian feeling well and no doctor/Cancer Clinic appointments until Tuesday. Tuesday will be chemo day #3 and we will see what the next week holds for us and I pray that we get through it just as easily as we did this past week and maybe even a better week if his sodium count stays where it should be. Obviously it was the low sodium that had made Brian feel so rotten last weekend.
So all is good for the moment and we are happy that things now seem on the up and up and Brian is hopefully tolerating chemo well. 14 more weeks and then chemo is done and then maybe stem cell if all goes well!
Hope you all have a lovely Labor Day Weekend and I know that my grandkids are so looking forward to going back to school on Monday (NOT!). Breanne is happy though....
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