Third Round of Chemo

I’m a couple weeks into my third chemo cycle, infusion was February 3rd. When the nurse practitioner reviewed my bloodwork she found almost everything to be in range except that my red blood cells and platelets were very low. Low enough that she said “You’re really anemic. We could do a blood transfusion today if you want.” I just gave her a blank stare. I suppose there are some people who know what to do with an offer like that, but I’m not one of them. I have absolutely no idea how to know if I want or don’t want a transfusion. Jason was in the room, we asked questions and decided I didn’t want a transfusion at the time, but thanked her for the kind offer. They did further bloodwork and determined my iron levels were incredibly low. So I’ve been eating A LOT of iron-rich foods and taking an iron supplement. The actual infusion went very well, and other than some predicted fatigue I haven’t really had other side effects since (no nausea, skin rash, neuropathy, etc). Even the fatigue has been manageable, much better than the fatigue during the 2nd round of chemo. Sunday after chemo was my lowest energy day, but the following week I noticed the fatigue fading each day. We sent my parents home/released them from duty Friday and have had occasional local help since.

Each step of the chemo cycle has been plan-as-we-go from my perspective. See how I’m tolerating chemo each round before planning the next. Which is fine with me, I don’t want to experience with any more chemo than what is helpful to my body. I have a CT scan Friday, and if the cancer looks stable and/or better, we would do one last round of chemo. After chemo she plans to me on a maintenance routine of continuing the immunotherapy and antibody I’m already receiving with the chemo. If the CT shows the cancer progressing, she won’t do the 4th round of chemo and I don’t know what is next. She has said she doesn’t have a reason to suspect the chemo isn’t effective, but wants to check now. There’s probably a lot of follow up questions I could have asked, but that’s plenty of information for me to digest for now. We do have an appointment to see an oncologist who specializes in my type of lung cancer for a second opinion. She works at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City, we plan to visit in the next couple of weeks. The details are complicated, a lot of back and forth but hopefully we will have specifics in the next few days of the when/what/how. Unfortunately none of the specifics will include “fun things to do in NYC during our stay” (is EVERYONE else weary of the negatives Covid has brought into this world????)

Here’s my current thought about CT scans. Approaching each scan makes me nervous. It feels like an opportunity to find out bad news. Thankfully, the other cancer patients I’ve talked to feel something similar. It is not that I have evidence to suspect I’m not doing well. But there’s something about being forced to see on an image of the inside of my body that makes me nervous and pessimistic. I was reading Tish Harrison Warren’s new book, Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep yesterday and read about her friends (Hunter and Julie) who’s young son was about to have surgery. “Before the nurses wheeled their infant son into the operating room, Julie looked at Hunter and said ‘We have to decide right now whether or not God is good, because if we wait to determine that by the results of this surgery, we will always keep God on trial.’ “ The book talks a lot about suffering, and I love this view of God. I haven’t thought to “decide right now whether or not God is good”, especially before a scan or an appointment but I would like to start doing that. I would like to wake up Friday morning and decide, is God good or is He not? Is God who He promises to be today or just on summer days when I have plenty of energy and laugh a lot? I know that I’ll have to repeat that question over and over, we all do, but I think it will be particularly helpful going into Friday.