5 Months of Chemotherapy

After spending most of June in the hospital Dee still had 5 months of chemotheraphy to look forward to. The weeks rotated depending on the cycle so that on some weeks she only had to go in for chemotheraphy on Monday. Then there were the hard weeks that she had to have chemo everyday but they were typically followed by a week where she only had to go in for blood tests. Depending on which of the four chemos she was getting some weeks she felt almost normal.
One of the drugs that made her sicker than any of the chemotheraphies was actually supposed to protect her stomach from one of the chemos. The first time she had to take it at home in pill form, she was sick within the hour. She spiked a fever and she couldn't keep anything down so she couldn't even take the next pills that she was suppose to have. Since she had just gotten out of the hospital the fever and throwing up really freaked us out. We went to the ER and they ran all these blood tests and cultures to see what was wrong. She ended up having to spend a few days in the hospital because the chemo had lowered her white cells again. They couldn't find anything so I started researching this new pill she had taken. I found out that it was being tested as a chemo drug in Europe which told me that it was a pretty nasty drug. Also the rare side effects were fevers and vomiting. After the trip to the ER happened the next time, we got the doctors to give her the drug intravenously which helped because she no longer had the vomiting. By then we also knew what over-the-counter meds the ER used to fight the fever so we just kept a log of her temperatures and gave her the meds at home. She hated going to the ER and being stuck in the hospital so this made her feel a lot better.
The chemotheraphy didn't get any easier as time went on, it got worse. Her bone marrow bounced back real good most weeks but every so many weeks her red blood cells would get so low that she had to have a transfusion. She had to have the white blood cell shots every couple of weeks and those always caused her a lot of pain as the bone marrow increased white blood cell production.

Still she was in great spirits when her last day of chemo came along and it was a good day for her. Here is a picture of us on her last day of chemo in 2006. I had broken four bones in my foot the day before which is why I'm in a wheelchair.