Birthday musings

Yesterday I got a platelet infusion at the outpatient clinic.  I wasn’t at the threshold for transfusion just yet, but I had a couple of bloody noses over the weekend and my doc wanted to make sure that my platelet count got a boost to help with the blood clotting issue.  Since the transfusion my bloody noses have gotten better.  Yay.

Last night my transplant coordinator, Callee, called & said that she still doesn’t have the results of the high resolution tests for whether or not Kyle is my match.  She was simply calling to let me know that she hadn’t forgotten about me and that she was going to be out of the office today at a conference but she would check her email throughout the day and let me know if she heard anything.  She also said that she expects that we will hear back on Wednesday.  I am SO ready to hear the news.  Callee was so sweet and told me she had really wanted to be able to tell me before or on my birthday, but we are at the mercy of the lab.  So, we continue to wait and pray J

I got the hats that ordered online last week in the mail today.  Fun accessories and they will keep my head warm now that I’m a baldie J lol  John will be home shortly with my birthday dinner (since I can’t go out to dinner due to being neutropenic we agreed to do Papa Murphy’s pizza tonight and we’ll go out and celebrate my birthday once my oncologist gives me the “all clear”).

I had my first major side effect from all of this treatment last night.  The bone pain from the Neupogen injections is intense!  I told John that it was worse than contractions (because there was no break between the pain).  I’ve never experienced pain like this before (it hurt so bad that it make me shakeL).  Yesterday, I tried hot baths and showers, ice packs, and our heating pad to tough it out without having to take another medication (I’m not anti-medication but I hate to take things if I can manage the pain some other way).  Finally last night I took John’s advice and I called the on-call doc to ask what pain medication I could take (given the fact that I’m taking so many other meds and they all have the potential to interact and have to be processed through my liver & kidneys).  He gave me several options and John, being the awesome husband that he is, went to the pharmacy & picked up some Motrin PM for me.  Totally did the trick.  Apparently this bone pain is not particularly responsive to the regular prescription narcotics and the doc said that Motrin would be the best thing to take (according to a study he had read).  He was right!! 

I’ve been staying on top of my Motrin doses and the bone pain is more manageable now.  I’ve only got a few more days of injections left (hope my counts rebound and I can stop on Thursday or Friday) and the silver lining is that the bone pain means that the medication is working,  kicking my bone marrow into overdrive to produce new blood cells.  I can certainly handle a few more days of discomfort (now that I’ve got the Motrin) and I know that its temporary.  This holds true for most of the stuff I’ve been through recently.  I keep reminding myself that the discomfort, loss of being able to work,  annoyance with having to go to the doctor 3-4 times per week, and all of my treatment is temporary.  Temporary is totally worth it and totally “do-able”  even if I have to make momentary goals for myself in order to get back to “life as usual” J

-Chellie