Chemo: Round two

Heath started his 2nd round of chemo today. His sis, Sheila took him to his Dr. appt and then to treatment. Its only the first day, so its hard to tell how things will go. Last week he went in on Monday to get bloodwork done and it turned out that his white count (neutrophil count) was too low. So...they started him on Neupogen injections to boost his count. Its usually an exception if someone DOESN'T have to get these injections. The minimum count that they want him at is 1.5...and he was at 0.5 on Monday. By Tuesday he was at 1.0, but he still had to get an injection. That afternoon and evening his back started to really be painful. At first we just thought it was his "normal" back pain that he gets occassionally, but it wasn't. It was pretty excruciating for him and he was having a really tough time moving around and finding a comfortable position. He took some Tylenol because he is allergic to Ibuprofen, but this hardly did anything at all. He ended up "sleeping" in the guest bed, but was only able to get a couple hours of sleep. He then came out on the couch and got a few more hours of sleep. When he went to bed I looked up side effects of Neupogen online and found that back pain is very common. This is because it causes your bone marrow to expand which puts a LOT of pressure on your bones. On Wednesday he had another blood count...which had only gone up to 1.1. He was pretty disappointed because he figured that with all that pain it should be at a 3.0. So, another injection....but also a prescription for narcotics. We forgot that he had some leftover from his surgery, so when we got home he took some of those. These seemed to help his pain significantly and he was able to move around a lot better and also get sleep. Thursday....more bloodwork and good news...his count was 1.9...which meant it was above the minimum, so no injections! His pain kept subsiding and he was able to quit taking any pain meds by the end of Friday. Saturday morning, Heath, Greg and I all went for a 26 mile bike ride...so Heath was feeling much better. He also (I forgot to mention) did a 56 mile bike ride about a week after his first treatment cycle. Yeah, I was a little peeved at first....but it really lifted his spirits and he said it felt awesome!

Anyway, today he had more bloodwork done and his count was up to 3.5! We are prepared for him to have to get injections regularly following his treatment weeks....but we will also be prepared with good pain meds too!