....it's all good....

last week i missed treatment again. my blood test result showed the lowest reading ever. my platelets was good – not affected at all. i’m mildly anemic with my red blood cells count slightly below par. the major, major concern was my white blood cell (wbc). once again, it was way below par and the one measure of risk is the absolute Neutrophil count but it turned out ‘---’ i.e. unreadable. Neutrophil, one type of wbc is the main defense against infection and with an unreadable count, I’m at extremely high risk of infection. this is no joke - I can easily end up in ICU if I catch an infection or get a chill.

my oncologist asked with concern, “you are not having fever or feeling unwell, are you?
i replied, “no”.
then he said, “obviously we can’t continue treatment with your condition. go home and rest well. we will look at you again next week.”

my head was screaming oh no, this is no good. no good at all. this is the second time I skip treatment but at the same time my heart was leaping in delight and singing,
'whohoe…whihoo...' to the tune of Gwen Stefani -the sweet escape.
you can say- my head and heart was totally out of sync.

well, it has been a tough month and not that I want to miss treatment but i really can do with a break. anyway, i can’t really continue treatment under my condition- the chemo will kill me before it even kill the cancer cells.

my oncologist then asked, “do you want Neupogen?”
“No!” – it came out more like a reflex than a thought out answer. that show how badly i despise Neupogen although it's considered a life saver under certain circumstances. i’m not sure why- Neupogen gives me the blues.

gosh, if I’m going to miss treatment, let me recover and heal naturally. I will have the Neupogen next week to prepare myself for cycle 3. for now, just give my body a break and i will be extra extra careful.

that’s the deal- no treatment, no Neupogen for a week. and that’s all it takes to make me happy. although it’s impossible to be 100% myself again within a few days but recovering to at least 60-70% of my old self is so good that it keep my mind focus that I can be well again when treatment is over. I have a really good few days last week that my little Matt called her mama beautiful….here is the story:

Matt : "mummy, you are so beautiful."
Me : "yeah? do you know what is beautiful?"
Matt : "hmmm….beautiful means ……HAPPY."
Me : *I let out a few giggles* "do you think mummy is happy?"
Matt : "yeah….mummy is happy ….because mummy plays with me…"



you see, even my little boy can tell that his mummy is happy. mmm…it must be a long while since I last played with him. if beautiful really means happy, then he has just made me feel beautiful that day.

that was last week. this week, i’m backed on chemo treatment. my blood test barely scrape through (wbc count back to border line but neutrophil still slightly below par) but since I have no fever and generally look well, we continued treatment. there is no escape for Neupogen too. i actually asked for it…in anticipation of the next Cisplatin chemo- the treatment i can't afford and don’t want to miss. thank goodness-I only need one shot this time and my hubby gave me the jab yesterday morning…. although still a wee bit tired today but feeling better already.

and that ….I have completed Cycle 2.
going for Cycle 3 treatment 1 next Tuesday…can’t help but feeling nervous and scared…..but gotta bite the bullets-yea. already half way through and let’s take it to the end. the little break managed to get my spirit all fire up to continue the battle.

update on CA125. it has dropped more than half to 70.3 from first reading 147.8. We need to bring it down below 35 by end of treatment. I think I can make it…cross my fingers!