So my TA DA moment came a little later - Friday night instead of Thursday. It is taking a little longer each session to get there....but at least I do get there!
On Saturday morning I woke up and had a nasty bruise on my leg. It looked like I took a fastball to my right upper thigh. I sat there for a good 15 minutes trying to figure out what I did ....it was definitely too nasty of a bruise to have forgotten the circumstances. But when I went over the last 24 hrs (bed, rest, more bed, more resting....) there was nothing that lept out that would have told me I did something that would have caused trauma. My mom urged me to call the Dr. I thought, well I will wait till Monday when I can call the nurses, I hate disturbing the on call weekend Dr. It didn't seem like that big of a deal. Monday morning came and I thought, eh...I will just tell Dr Kurup about the bruise when I go in this Thursday...not that big of a deal right? Then when I got in the shower I saw more bruises, all over...and they were ugly. This was my first moment of panic. I knew that this meant that my blood wasnt clotting....and that it could mean I was bleeding. I called the nurse hotline and Julie called me back. I explained the big traumatic bruises all over my legs. She said that would be a sign of a low platelet count. Your platelets are what clot your blood. From this sign alone (lots of nasty bruises) she did not think that I was at such a low count that I would need an blood tranfusion. She also explained that I was on the cusp when I went in for treatment last time: my count was 97. They want you to be at 100 to get chemo. A healthy person is at 150. She estimated I was low...maybe in the 20s, but I would have to be below 10 to get a transfusion. She also said, well you aren't bleeding from anywhere so....and I interupted her and said, well, every time I blow my nose blood comes out. YOU ARE GETTING BLOODY NOSES?! she said with a slight hint of panic. No No, nothing gushing blood....blood is just coming out when I blow my nose. Ok, that is better...it would have been a bad sign if you were bleeding profusely anywhere, like a nose bleed that won't stop. I said, no nothing like that. She said if I was scared or just needed to know, I could come in and they would run the numbers on my blood. I said I felt more reassured now so I would just wait until Thursday for my next chemo round, but what other signs should I look for if something has taken a turn for the worse? She said, I don't want to freak you out, but if you start getting bad headaches it could mean that you are bleeding in your brain, so that would be a bad sign. Gotcha, will call if anything like that happens. She also said that since my count was definitely low right now.....it may not get up above 100 by this Thursday and I wouldn't be allowed to get chemo.
So today, we went in....so torn on whether I wanted to go through with chemo or whether I would get a free pass for one more good week. On one hand, one more good week - YAY! On the other hand, this now turns our calendar into a total closterf*&^ and we have reschedule everything go forward for the next month since our entire lives revolve around stupid chemo and the "bad weeks".
We had Karen again (yay!) and we started to tell her about the horrible week we had (so much pain! bruising all over!). Dr. Kurup came in when Karen was starting to get my IV ready, so Karen left and we started over again on the symptoms. I showed Dr Kurup my bruises and she was pretty horrified - that is not good, we need to get you tested to see if your numbers are even going to be good enough this round....let me get Karen back in here. Karen came back, took a long time to find a vien....found one, got some blood. Now normally you go straight to the infusion room and get set up. But they were not convinced that was going to happen for me this round, so we waited in the exam room. About 10 minutes went by and a medical asst dropped off the lab numbers outside our room. Bob jumped up to see what they were. Platelet count 76...no go. Karen came back in, laughed that we had peeked, got Dr Kurup to come in and give the official - go home, come back next week.
So here I am now....denied chemo for this week....which of course I LOVE but also hate at the same time since now that pushes everything back a week. Oh well, have to take the good with the bad!
I'm off to go see Ella....she is going to work on getting my platelet count higher. Then we will steal away tomorrow for a (hopefully) sunny weekend at the beach. It feels like I got a free pass, get out of jail free card. :)
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