Oy Vey

I feel like shit and cancer sucks.

See? I told you that would probably be coming some day. The past 3 weeks have been bad. First, I developed an awful, super itchy rash on my head and face. So I couldn't really go out because I couldn't put anything on my head. The doctor didn't think it was related to the treatment, so I saw my dermatologist. He ran some tests and while waiting for the results just put me on an antibiotic. It totally cleared up in a few days. Nice! Then it totally came back 4 days later. Not nice.  Based on the test results, he switched me to a different anti-biotic, which after 10 days, did absolutely nothing. I called and left 2 messages for him, and did not hear back. I thought he might be on vacation so called the appointment-booking line. No answer, no voice mail available, no indication he's on vacation. FFS.

Then my lymph nodes in my head and neck started getting big, but I figured that was due to this rash. Then my temperature started to climb and last Friday, got above the threshold where we're instructed to go to the hospital. We spent 7 hours in emergency, but most of that was from being treated (we waited an hour and a half). Lucky for me, my doctor happened to be the on-call hematologist, so she came to see me. They did blood work, gave me two kinds of antibiotics through an IV and a bunch of fluids. I also had an ECG (my heart rate was 133) and a chest xray. So I felt quite cared for. My doctor is really awesome.

The blood work came back ok, and since I had a pre-scheduled appointment to see her again on Monday (yesterday), they sent me home with a good broad spectrum antibiotic for the weekend.

The weekend did not go well. My fever spiked, lymph nodes got bigger and more of them were enlarged. I felt very, very barfy, but the rash cleared up nicely. This is a bad sign. It means the rash wasn't causing these other symptoms.

Yesterday, I saw my doctor and did more blood work and it's going in the wrong direction. My heart rate was also a crazy 155, so they did another ECG. It was fine. The combined evidence though leads her to believe the cancer is back. This is not so good, since I'm currently in treatment. So we are switching gears, as this indicates the disease is quite aggressive.

The doctor wants to do what's called "High-dose chemotherapy with autologous stem cell transplantation". Basically, I'll get very heavy duty chemo that wipes out everything, and then to help heal my body they'll transplant my stem cells back into me. It's quite intensive treatment and it is likely I will need to be in the hospital for about 2 months.Yes, 2 MONTHS. This is not an outpatient thing.

They will do another bone marrow biopsy to make sure my bone marrow hasn't been affected. If it has, then they'll need to collect stem cells from one of my siblings. The chances of a match are 1/4, and since I have 3 of them, the odds are good there will be a match. I don't know what happens if they can't use mine AND there is no match. I'm staying away from the "what ifs". We'll deal with whatever happens as it happens.

So my chemo for today is canceled, but I still have a CT scan on tomorrow, followed by a
meeting with my doctor where we'll figure out the exact plan, dates etc.

Sigh. Still trying to be positive, but seriously, OY. F'N. VEY.