Dee's chemotherapy worked quickly. If you remember, I mentioned that she was in the hospital for a total of 23 days when she got her diagnoses. The first 7 days were spent figuring out what she had and then coming up with a plan once we got a hold of the great doctor that helped her. After two weeks of chemotherapy, she started losing her hair. She had very long, thick hair thanks to her Native American/Mexican heritage. You couldn't tell that she was losing by looking at her but every time she ran her hands through her hair, she came out with a handful of hair. This added to her depression, especially since she was awake a bit more. So she decided to take control of the one thing that she could, her hair. The NA on the hospital had a razor and was able to cut off all of her hair for her. She felt better about losing her hair when it was just little pieces going away. Plus she was able to get some cute little knitted caps that volunteers made for the patients. They were very colorful and she really liked them.
Besides taking out her hair, the chemotherapies immediately when to work on the cancer. By the time we left the hospital, the cancer was cleared out of her bone marrow and it was reproducing its own cells. It was working pretty good too because the chemo would knock the cells down and they would just come back. She was on shots to force her bone marrow to work on white blood cells first but once the shot wore off, it would work on everything else.
At the end of her 23 day hospital visit she was exhausted and the chemotherapy plan was stretched out ahead of her for months to come. The important thing was that she was alive and things were moving in a positive direction. Here is a pic of us just before Dee got out of
the hospital. She was alert, her lymph nodes had gone down, and she was happy to be alive.
the hospital. She was alert, her lymph nodes had gone down, and she was happy to be alive.
