I so believe in the power of prayer. I had seen it when my triplets were born at 28 weeks and are now perfectly healthy. I had such a support group of great people - I feel so blessed.
So now to the treatments. The first week went okay. I thought I can do this! About the third week was when the trouble began. I would go for weekly blood work to make sure all the counts were good so I could withstand treatment.
I had a couple of incidents of passing out. But one night it was horrible. Every time I would get out of bed to use the restroom, I would crumble to the ground. I hurt myself by hitting my head on my dresser, on the kitchen tile when I was trying to get something to drink and hitting my head on the bathroom tile. I called my mom and she came and got me after the babysitter came to the house.
My mom took me to my Radiation Oncologist's office. They could not get my blood pressure by using the automatic cuff. Once the nurse got it manually, it was 60/40 - hence I was severely dehydrated. So they gave me tons of IV fluids. Also my blood work that week was horrible - I was border line in need of blood transfusions. All treatments stopped for two weeks.
A quick word about my Radiation Oncologist - she is the most awesome doc. She gave me her cell number and told me to call her if I ever got in trouble and wasn't feeling good. One weekend, she even took calls when she was on vacation. She has always advocated for me and made sure I was getting the treatment I needed or sent me to docs to address any symtoms that she couldn't. Love her!
For those two weeks, I went to the hospital daily for blood work and Neupogen shots to bring my blood counts up. I escaped blood transfusions and my counts came up. I was strong enough to resume radiation treatments but the docs decided I was not strong enough to resume chemo.
I restarted the radiation treatments and it was rough. I could not retain food - everything went right through me. Anytime I had a doc appointment my mom would take me. She would go in first and get me a wheelchair. I had nothing left and had no strength. By this time I had lost 27 pounds and was weak.
As I was nearing the end of my 30 radiation treatments, my radiation oncologist told me I was going to get 8 additional treatments focused on my right ovary as they were worried about how it looked. Once again I was facing something that I did not think I could do and was very disappointed. I just wanted to get it done with and sleep. I was drained.
I got the 8 additional external treatments and also had the planned two internal radiation treatments. All treatments ended in mid-September 2010. The docs wanted me to take a couple of weeks off to recoup before I went back to work. So Oct. 4, 2010, I went back to work. In time all hell broke loose. More later -
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