Home After Chemo #6 - January 20-February 4

This round of chemo was my best and easiest round. I was only nauseous the day following chemo and felt just a little off the second day. After that I felt better and stronger every day. I did not nap at all (though I had the usual problems sleeping because of the 100 mg of prednisone I took the first 5 days after chemo). And I was thankful that I was feeling so good.

The last time I took my blood thinner was Monday evening the 25th. Once again, on the evening of day 6, Tuesday the 26th, I was fever free. Such a wonderful thing. That means my last hospital stay was Thanksgiving weekend. I will be thankful for my health for a long time to come, that is for sure.

The next day, one week following chemo, we went in for labs. As usual, my labs showed no surprises - the things that we expected to be low, like white blood cell count and platelets, were low and other things, like lower hemoglobin, were acceptable.

I also had an ultrasound to check for blood clots. None were found (as expected), so the doctor was able to pull my PICC line. There was almost no bleeding afterwards. And I was glad to be FREE. No more wrapping my upper right arm before a shower. I am grateful!

One week later we went back in for labs. Everything came back great - so that meant I did not need to return the following week for labs. No more regular labs. Another last that is such good news!

After taking and recording my temperature every evening when I was home for 5 months, it seemed odd (but wonderful) when I stopped. Denise told me that I could keep taking it if I wanted to, but I let her know that I would NOT be continuing that.

God continues to be good to me. I feel great, and I am getting stronger with time. On Thursday, February 4th, it started snowing in the morning - wet, heavy snow. Denise shoveled the driveway once and then needed to go to the ER with her Dad (they were able to help him and all was well the next week). They were gone for 4 hours, and I shoveled the driveway 2 different times. While I was out the second time, the plow came. After shoveling all the heavy snow, I could not lift that extremely wet heavy snow at the end of the driveway. So I pushed it around a bit to open the end of the driveway for them when they came home. It felt good to be useful again.

From now on, I will only update the blog occasionally, when something is noteworthy, or when I visit the doctor. I appreciate you following my blog - and am thankful that since Thanksgiving weekend, my treatments have been "routine and boring". That is a very good thing, as we had more than enough excitement before that!