Coming down, fast and hard

I was wrong about the Filgrastim. I thought, and I think the Medicine team thought, that I was getting Filgrastim to prevent me from becoming too neutropenic. But the intention was really the opposite. The chemo kills cells when they're dividing. Filgrastim makes cells divide faster, increasing the odds that the chemo will work on them. So hopefully more of the leukemia cells will die off. But more of the Sarah cells will also die off.

The strategy seems to be working, because my WBC is dropping fast. I came in with a WBC of about 4, which is normal. After one shot of Filgrastim, it jumped up to 19. Yesterday, after four days of chemo, it was down to 1.6. And today I'm at 0.1.

I started feeling pretty crappy early on this round. By Wednesday evening I had no appetite. Mom and Dad and David went out to dinner and brought me back some soup and pie. I could tell it was good, but I could only take a few bites. Yesterday I didn't feel like going on my usual morning walk. I was going to make myself go anyway, until I asked my phone what the weather was like. It's cold out there! It doesn't help that I'm not getting steroids this round. Steroids seem to really help with all the side effects. The only good thing about not getting steroids is I won't miss them when they're gone. Because they already are.

I don't have a very good memory, and I tend to be optimistic. So when I started this round, I thought maybe I could do something productive with my time. Like learn a new skill or work on my personal website or read a lot of books or something. But now I remember how I feel during chemo, and I remember how hard it is to do anything at all. At UC Health they would ask me every morning if I had any goals for that day. And they would give examples like taking a shower, or going for a walk. It was nice that they kept things in perspective.

If you didn't have the energy to do anything, what would be your goal for the day?

pretending to have hair