s Pdate 5/24/10

Since my appointment was so early at Duke (0830), we decided to go up the night before. As we got closer to NC, the weaker I felt. We stopped at the NC line at the rest stop and I almost past out. I knew as the week got longer, the weaker I felt and since my hemoglobin (red blood count) was like 8.0 and 12.0 is normal, I had either not eaten enough greens or was missing something in my diet. See, the chemo eats up the bad and the good cells so you have to really eat more than you usually do, but I haven't had much of an appetite. Anyway, contacted the Duke doctor on call and he advised me to go to the ER. We got there around 5 pm Sunday and got out at 10:00 p.m. then went to the hotel we booked. Only thing the ER did was a bunch of tests, and give me some potassium, since that was low. Advised my hemoglobin was 8.4 so it had gone up some. To make a long story short, I contacted my doctor the next morning and they immediately sent me up to chemo for 2 units of blood, which took 5 hours. Then the doctor wanted to see me as she heard I fell and hit my head....no, just almost passed out. Since I was feeling somewhat better, we decided to go ahead with my 2 chemo treatments and left at 6:30 last night. I do feel like I have a little more energy today, was able to wash one load of clothes, paid some bills, took a shower and picked up a few things. That's more than I've been able to do in a couple of weeks, praise the Lord! Thanks for the prayers, cards, emails and just for thinking about me. Love to all, Janice

Update 5/17/10

Sorry this is late but had virus last week with two trips to my doctor and one trip to the ER. My potassium has been low again and the ER had to give me an IV potassium treatment. Also found out at the ER that I had a UTI so went to urologist yesterday and she provided me with an antibiotic. At my treatment on Monday found out my bloodwork is very low so they are talking a possible transfusion this coming treatment so am working on trying to get my counts up here by eating a lot of greens and my urologist wants me to get more water in. So, guess I'll be floating around with a lot of greens in my stomach!! LOL!!! Thanks for all of the cards, emails, calls, etc. They really help a lot but I believe it's all of the prayers! Take care and love to all. Janice

Update 5/5/10

As my stomach was not feeling well on Monday, I was able to call and change my lab work and chemo to yesterday and by then I was feeling somewhat better. I did again have to take another catherization because of funny looking labs. They watch my kidneys carefully because of the low potassium and low white blood count. I did not find out what my counts were but apparently either the same or better because I received the 3 chemos and the Zometa for the bones. We left by 3:30 which was much better. Since next week is my bye week, I do not have to worry about waiting the 5 days before having chemo again but I do have an appointment with my neurosurgeon to have another MRI for my brain tumor on Monday and see him the same day. Still its my bye week and I look so forward to them. I receive a steroid for the nausea and I think that is beginning to effect my sleep as I did not go asleep until 4:30 this morning and then the dog woke me up at 7:30 so with 3 hours sleep this update may not make much sense - LOL!! Again, I can not say enough about the emails, cards, prayers and concerns. Even though I don't answer them directly, hopefully this email is getting to everyone. Stacy has loaned me her laptop so am back on line with that. Danny, over the weekend, had our nephew help with building me a handicapped deck - no I can get around most days but if the Ettrick Matoaca rescue squad comes to get me, they have a hard time getting me out of the house so this ramp will help plus Mom and Dad both soon to be 88 years old have a lot of problem with a few steps, so really love the new ramp. Love to all and take care, Janice