Last Thursday, July 3rd, was to be the start of my 5th cycle (out of 6) of treatment. I had my good friend Lynn taking me in the morning and my sister-in-law Tracy coming from NY to tend to me in the afternoon. I went in on Tuesday as usual to get my labs done to make sure I was ok for treatment and got the call Wednesday morning from Petra, my oncology nurse, telling me my white counts (ANC) were too low and I would need to have labs drawn again Thursday morning to see if I could have the chemo.

I called Lynn and asked if she could pick me up earlier so we could get the labs drawn well before my scheduled chemo appointment and I called Tracy and asked her to not start the 2 hour drive up to CT before she heard from me. Petra told me my ANC was 752 based on Tuesday’s labs and 1/2 hour after she drew blood on Thursday she entered the waiting room shaking her head and wearing a big frown. No go for chemo she said. Your counts went down even more to 712. They need to be 1000 or more to get the chemo. She did however say that I needed 4 bags of magnesium so the trip wasn’t all for naught. Lynn and I hung out while I got my magnesium fix and contemplated the impact of missing this chemo. I also called Tracy and gave her the bad news so I wasn’t able to see her. We agreed to get together this August and celebrate my last treatment.

As I write this post, today is Wednesday July 9th and I am sitting in my recliner at UConn getting my “make up” chemo. My counts were just over 1000 so I was cleared to get treatment and I scheduled it for a day earlier (Wed. vs Thurs) because I have tickets to the Dave Matthews concert Saturday night and wanted to give myself an extra day to recover from the treatment. My nurse today did say that because I am close to the minimum, I might be denied next week as well if my counts don’t rebound. I’m 5 treatments away from finishing this whole journey so I am anxious to keep going. Not sure there is much I can do to increase my white counts but I am open to suggestion!