Round 4

Round 4 of my chemo treatments went off without a hitch yesterday -- I'm now 50% done! Woo hoo!! The only issue that came up is that my white blood count has fallen again (it's now 1.0, and 1.5 is the low end of normal) and so my doctor is going to have me take daily shots of some drug (Neupogen??) that will help my bone marrow to produce more white blood cells. Other than that, everything was same-old, same-old. I had FOLFOX again, minus the cal-mag infusion, and am feeling all the same old symptoms (headache, neuropathy, etc), but at least I now know that they will eventually dissipate and so it's a much easier emotional battle this time.

In fact, I was talking yesterday with my friend, Carla, about my treatments. Carla is an avid athlete and has run 6 marathons in her lifetime. She offered to help me train for the Nike marathon next year and was asking if I was familiar yet with the race course. She talked about how helpful it is to have run the race course before race day so that you are prepared for any hard stretches; she said that knowing when the hard parts are coming up and how long they will last makes the run much easier. I found this to be such a perfect analogy to my chemo treatments!!