Conquering with a boxer’s mentality

I am in the last leg of this crazy journey, waiting to hear the bell ring signaling the end of the bout, and currently my opponent- that biological bully cancer has just delivered a stunning 1-2 punch combo. My last leg in this journey is a final round of chemo- 6 sessions every other week. I had the first session on April 7th, so if you are keeping track I should have had a session last week. Well, my white blood cell (WBC) count was low, meaning I could not get chemo-first punch delivered. I was bummed, but shook it off. The direction was to move everything back a week, so I went back today fully expecting to have a chemo session- my nurse even said “if I was a betting woman, I would bet that your WBC count will be fine!” Well watch out cause here comes the second punch- my WBC count was even lower today than last week!
Now some of you might be thinking “what does her WBC count have to do with getting a chemo treatment?” Well according to Wikipedia, a WBCs is defined as cells of the immune system that are involved in defending the body against both infectious disease and foreign materials. There are 5 types of WBC but the ones that are monitored closely are called neutrophils. Neutrophils are the most abundant of the WBCs (40-75% of WBCs) and are formed from stem cells in the bone marrow. The WBCs help your body fight infection, so if they are low the body is more susceptible to infections. Chemotherapy can damage your bone marrow killing many of the cells that form here, such as neutrophils. If I would continue to get chemo with a low WBC count, it would damage my bone marrow and make me extremely open to a possible infection that my body would not be able to fight off. Usually the body bounces back on its own, but sometimes it needs a little help.
Honestly, it was hard for me to understand why now, all of a sudden, and on the last leg of my journey, things were starting to unravel. My oncologist used the following analogy to explain it better. He said “Imagine a boxer continuously getting punched, eventually it will take him longer to recover. We have continuously punched your bone marrow and it just needs a little longer to recover.”
So the biological bully may have won this round, but he will definitely not win the fight! As we both go to our separate corners, I am preparing my body to come out fighting next Monday. Like I stated before, I will not “survive” my bout with cancer- I will “conquer” it. Cancer ain’t got nothing on me!

Greetings from the Bad Blogger!

If I look at my entries, it has been quite a while since I have blogged. Never fear though, I have thought about blogging every day! Actually, I am just getting my energy back, so lets use that as an excuse.
So, since the last time we chatted, I have had surgery and have started the final leg of this crazy journey with my last 3 months of chemo. My surgery went well- or as well as any surgery can go, and I was described as a Rock Star! I have a 14 inch incision straight down my abdomen…that was how they got in. Needless to say, I think bikinis are no longer in my future, but I plan on bringing the sexy one piece back! My incision was closed with staples, and let me tell you that was not pretty. I have a picture but will spare you that graphic image. According to my doctors, I looked much better in person versus my scans. Yay me!! With that being said, I only had 15% of my liver removed instead of the initially thought 50%. My tumor and the 44 surrounding lymph nodes were removed (only one was contaminated) as well as my gallbladder. All my margins were clear. So technically, I no longer have cancer.
This is where I wrestled with having to do 3 more months of chemo. I mean, I realistically understand why…it’s the best case scenario with the best possible outcome and there maybe microscopic cancers roaming around that do not show up on scans, but emotionally I really just did not want to do this anymore. I started my last 3 months of chemo yesterday. This chemo is the “big” chemo meaning it comes home attached to me for 46 hours. While I was less than thrilled to do chemo again, I figured if I didn’t my “Ride or Die” friends would not be happy! So I am embracing these last 3 months, but don’t get me wrong, I will be happy when I can finally say I am done!