Last night, I talked my boyfriend into buzzing my hair in preparation for the next round of chemo. This chemo is the kind that makes your hair fall out, and I was due for a haircut anyway. Unfortunately, the clippers gave out as we were nearing the end, and it’s a little shorter and a little more uneven than I had anticipated.
Leaving the hospital this last time was tough; I cried on the way home. Instead of the hope of getting and feeling better, I just saw more of the same stretch out before me in a neverending landscape of illness. Luckily, I had some friends in town from Dublin, Ireland; Dublin, Ohio, and Cleveland, plus a surprise visit from a former New York bootcamp friend who now lives in Chicago, and all the activity kept me happy and distracted before my Friday morning doctor appointment. Before then, I honestly thought might be the last time I might see some of my friends. However, the doctor gave me some hope with the latest plan.
I had hoped the plan would involve the new PRRT treatment, but that is being held up by negotiations with health insurance companies (of course). Since the diarrhea caused by the tumors has just cleared up a little bit, thanks to the opium tincture, I don’t have time to wait for the health insurance companies’ red tape and greed, so I am going to start on Wednesday with an older type of chemo. In fact, it’s chemo I’ve had before: carboplatin and etoposide. They will be given over about hourlong sessions for two days in a row, every three weeks, for six rounds. (That would make my last day July 26.)
I have mixed feelings about this chemo. I had it before as part of my augmented ICE treatment before my stem cell transplant for Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but it was a high-dose in-hospital treatment, along with ifosfamide. It was the “I” of ICE that had really knocked me out, so I’m somewhat hopeful that the carboplatin and etoposide won’t be that bad. I also have to take Neuopogen injections to boost my bone marrow, as I did before stem cell collection years ago, and that makes your bones ache. Otherwise, the side effects of this seem like the usual chemo side effects: nausea, some fatigue, hair loss. It’s familiar.
The doctor said I would know within the first few treatments if it were working. I’d be trading this diarrhea for the nausea, fatigue, hair loss and bone pain. It doesn’t seem like much of a trade, but count me in. The hope, of course, is that this buys me some more quality time. I’ve felt a little bit better having a plan and having a date to set my sights on. She said she would be surprised if this didn’t work, but of course, the radiation was supposed to work and the embolization was supposed to work and the Dacarbazine was supposed to work. I’m also a little worried, because I’ve had this before, and I don’t think it shrank my pancreas tumor, which was present five years ago when the doctors thought it was part of my lymphoma.
Still, it’s given me a bit of hope. In the meantime, if the PRRT becomes available, the doctors will weigh whether or not I should stay on this treatment or if I should switch to PRRT. If this treatment seems to be working, I think the plan would be for me to stick it out through July to keep the PRRT as the next step further down the line. If this chemo doesn’t work within the upcoming months, then PRRT will be the next plan. I’m focusing on smaller annoyances—my hair (or lack thereof) and chemo eating up most of my summer—to avoid the bigger questions like: What if this doesn’t work? How many treatments can I fail?
In the interim, good thing have happened–friends have visited and set up a GoFundMe and done all sorts of nice things. I’ve been blogging less as I’ve been out in the world more. After my last visitor left yesterday, I didn’t blog since I’ve been spending too much time alone with my thoughts. I read and decided to spend time alone with other people’s thoughts instead.