I’ve been in HELL …

…. I am glad to be coming out of it. Remember I told you IGeV was the best chemo I’ve had … and I wondered why did they give me ESHAP first when it was so much harder that IGeV. Well, I know now – the hard way. They warned me the biggest side effect is low low counts and that I’d need transfusions to avoid bleeding and major infections. Well, I got it last Friday … then Saturday I felt some scratchy throat and weakness; then Sunday I knew I was coming down with flu. My Monday counts also went up and they said I am ready to be pherised (collect stem cells) so Tuesday I came back even though I still felt sick and I had a temperature. By the end of the day I was a major disaster with a fever and non stop runny nose and congestion. Oh, yes – another juicy nugget some might enjoy – I’ve been giving Neupogen shots to myself twice a day and the amount of lower body pain I’ve had can amount to a birth of another baby. So with the Neupogen shots and prior chemos I could not get anything over the counter and Raymond left my doc a message on Wednesday pleading for help. The protocol is to go to Emergency if I was over 101.0 but I was on the border below. Anyway, I got some antibiotics on Thursday and with continued rubs I am now much better. The bad news is I don’t know if I managed to collect enough of cells. I need 5 million so I really thought I would rock this in 2-3 days, yet I kept declining every day. And as of yesterday I only had 4 million. They gave me FOUR shots yesterday in hopes I’d do better today. But honestly, I don’t know. I did only 0.5 mln yesterday and I don’t know if I came up today … I have temperature, low blood pressure, high pulse and headache… I fear for the quality of the cells -- I don’t want my sick cells back any more! So that’s that … I don’t know what they will want to do. I’ll see the SCT guy on Tuesday and will update you then (and somewhere next week I am supposed to get another IGeV even though the mass didn’t shrink … I am so afraid of what will happen after it … will I die of chemo? I’d rather die of chemo than cancer …