Another Hospital Visit

Yes you read that right. I am in the hospital again. This time for something completely different. So let me catch you up to speed with what has been going on.
As you may remember, my body was having a hard time adjusting to this oral chemo so my doctor dropped me to the lowest dose possible. I developed a horrible cough that I just couldn’t kick and had a hard time drawing in a breath without coughing. The plan was to do scans in June to see if the Affinitor was working. Well those scans showed that my cancer is still there and growing very slightly. So we came up with the plan of starting chemo on June 17. I will be doing a chemo called Abraxane and will be very similar to Gemzar. I will be doing chemo for 3 weeks in a row and then will get a week off. The side effects are said to be pretty easy compared to other chemos and it sounds like I will lose my hair again (my doctor said that some loose it while other don’t).
So now I know you are still wondering exactly why I had to go to the hospital. Well my doctor decided that I needed to take a steroid to get rid of my cough. It seemed to work for a while but it never really kicked the cough. Then on Sunday I started to feel sick. I couldn’t get a breath in with coughing up a lung!! I also started to run a low grade fever all day. By Monday I couldn’t get enough sleep. I was soooo tired! I called my doctor and she wanted to see me on Wednesday. By the time Wednesday came I was miserable! I still had a low grade fever and still coughing like crazy. She decided that I should go to the hospital so they could run some tests and get me on some antibiotics. The thought was that I had pneumonia. Luckily my mom and sister were on their way to my house (they were going to help me get my house ready for chemo on Monday and then help me after I got chemo). At the hospital they did lots of tests! The worst was when they had to get arterial blood. They go in on the inside of your wrist where all your nerves are. NOT a good day for a needle diva!!! They took so much blood I am surprised I have any left.
I also had to have a CT scan. Now I have had these done before but I will try to explain it. They shoot a dye through my port and then as it spreads through your body they roll you through the machine. Sounds easy right? Well the dye feels like a fireball shooting through your body ending with a feeling of you peeing your pants. The results of that test was, according to the doctor, “unimpressive.” Meaning I didn’t have pneumonia, or anything wrong with my lungs. So the thought was I just had a upper respiratory infection. They started me on antibiotics and wanted to monitor me through the night. The antibiotics worked right away and by the morning I was feeling much better. What an answer to prayer!!!
Time to go home right? I wasn’t so lucky. The CT scan showed a part of my liver that looked to be abnormal. My oncologist wanted to run another CT scan just on the liver to see what the issue was. Now if you remember my liver enzymes jumped up to 600 when I started taking Afinitor (100 or lower would be normal). They had started to go back down but they weren’t normal yet. So off I went on another encounter with the “fire ball.” Of course I would have to wait until the next morning to get the results so it was another night in the hospital.
When the results came in they were inclusive and the recommendation was either an MRI or a liver biopsy. Since I just had a PET scan that didn’t show anything in my liver and I had the CT scan dye twice my doctor decided that what they were seeing was damage done by the Afinitor. She said we would monitor my liver enzymes to make sure they go back to normal. We decided against the biopsy because I am starting chemo on Monday anyway so if it is the start of cancer the chemo will take care of it. We can check it again in 3 months when I have a PET scan to make sure the chemo is working.
So now it was time to go home right? Not so quick. Since they have been putting lots of fluids in me my red blood cells had dropped to 7. My doctor decided that I could use 2 units of blood while I was here. I think it is a good idea to get my body as healthy as it can be for Monday.
So here I sit waiting for my last bag of blood to finish and I am on my way home!!! Please pray for me as I start chemo on Monday.