Brinker morning visit.

Dr. Brinker news this morning.  After he asked how I was feeling and how things are going of which I answered that so far I have only had a headache in response to treatment.  Nothing that Tylenol cannot take care of, he did say that was more than likely caused from the anti-nausea medicine.  He did tell me that he doesn't expect me to feel too bad from the treatment this week.  But, that he expects me to feel fatigued next week and my counts to drop to the point that I will need blood products.  That is why he wants blood work done Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  With Karlye's surgery next Thursday I had to make arrangements with Karlye's doctor to get the blood work done at the University of Chicago.  But, unless I hear otherwise today it looks like that will not be a problem.  Only problem will be if I need blood or platelets.  Then I will have to decide if I want to pay $100 out of pocket to have it done in the ER or come all the way back to St. Joe and get it done there.  We will have to play it by ear.

We discussed what to expect following my release from the hospital.  Besides what I already mentioned he did say that he didn't want me doing things like cleaning out the attic, picking up after the dog, being around people that are sick and being in big crowds like movie theaters or stores during the big rush times.  Especially when I my counts are low.

He explained that my counts will drop and will then start to come back up like before.  When they are back up he will then decide to put me back in the hospital and do the next round of consolidation chemo.  I did ask him about when my next bone marrow biopsy would be and good news is unless something in my blood work indicates otherwise, my next bone marrow biopsy will not be until we are done sometime in April.  Then checks ups every 3 months and another bone marrow biopsy in a year.

He had told me before that my consolidation chemo treatments will be about every twenty-eight days.  So mid-January probably sometime around the 13th I will expect to be back in the hospital for another six days.

He did find out that I wasn't taking the lovenox and stressed that he wanted me to take it over the next three days because of the blot clots that they have been seeing in people with PIC lines.  So I will be getting those maintenance shots once a day.

So, I just need to make it over the weekend and probably next week with no issues and should be good.  Yeah!