Making Sure I Experience Everything...

Last Friday I went to the doctors for a regular status check. At these appointments they do a blood test and check how I am progressing on the side effects. I am making forward progress but it is still slow going. At this point I can talk a bit now and that alone is a big improvement. No more hand gestures or nodding my head to try to communicate. One thing this experience has taught me is that I would be lousy at playing charades. :-) The initial blood counts came back low. While I was undergoing radiation treatment there wasn't much they could do about the white blood cell count. There is a drug that can boost the white cell count but you can not take it when under going radiation. As it turns out later in the day when they had the final blood test results back they called and scheduled me to come in on Monday to get the shot. At this point I am neutropenic. That means my white blood cell count is lower than they would like and I need to be careful to avoid infection. They also want to get the white blood cell count back up before the next chemo treatment that starts in a week.

A new side effect

Earlier in the week when getting up out of a chair I felt a pain and tightening in my right leg. My thought was that I has twisted or pulled something getting out of the chair. Over the next two days my leg was a bit sore if I tried to walk on it and it did feel like I had pulled something. Then on Thursday I noticed that my lower calf and ankle has swollen up a bit. Since I was at the doctors on Friday and the oncologist office does other work outside of oncology I thought I would ask if they could take a look at my leg and see if I needed to go see my regular doctor. The medical oncologist took one look and immediately new what the problem was. Apparently I had developed a blood clot in my leg. The swelling was the blood pooling below the clot. Of course you can imagine my surprise at that. According to the doctor this is a potential side effect of the chemo treatments. They increase the risk of blood clots.

To be sure that I had a blood clot and get me started on treatments right away they sent me to the hospital to have an ultra sound exam on my leg. Fortunately the hospital is right behind the doctors office and they were able to get me in and out in around an hour. I new that the doctors office was taking this seriously because they would not let me leave the hospital until they had the results of the test and then if it turns out that I did have a blood clot they wanted me back at their office.

Learning A New Skill

So after the ultra sound test I went back up to the doctors office. I was told that the blood clot isn't a big deal as long as it gets treated. The treatment consists of taking a blood thinner called coumadin once a day for a few months. This in essence helps melt the blood clot. It takes a few days possibly up to a week for the coumadin to build up to the desired level in my system to treat the blood clot. While they are waiting for the coumadin levels to build up they have another medicine to take so that the treatment for the blood clot starts right away. This treatment involves taking a different drug once a day by injection. Yep, that's right. Once a day I have to get an injection of a drug called Arixtra. To receive the injections they gave me a home injection kit. Yep, you read that one correct as well. I get to give myself home injections. This from the person with with the needle phobia.

Actually the injections are not that bad. They provided me with a starter kit that included the syringes prefilled with the medicine and a sharps container. The needle is similar to the ones used for insulin injections. The injection is delivered in the waist area. The way it works is I pinch an inch (just like the old Special K commercials) and swap it with an alcohol wipe. The syringe has a cap over the needle and the plunger. Once the alcohol dries up I take the caps off, pinch the inch again and inject the needle. Its only about a half inch long or so and goes in pretty quick with just a small pinch. Then I push down the plunger until the bubble in the syringe reaches the end near the needle. I then take the needle out and push the plunger a bit more until it clicks. This retracts the needle back up into the syringe so it isn't exposed. By doing this it prevents me from accidentally sticking myself with the needle. I dispose of the needle in the sharps container and that is it, all done. It takes about 2-3 minutes total to administer. The design of the syringe is actually pretty ingenious and makes the process pretty simple.

So for the person that started out having a needle phobia I have had countless IV's, blood tests, a PEG tube, a PICC line and now am doing at home injections. If I didn't know better I would swear my body is having the reactions to insure I get to experience the maximum number treatment options. It must think there is a book deal in this somewhere and we needed some extra material for additional chapters. :-)