the end of the beginning

“It is not the end, it’s not the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning.”
Winston Churchill

Day 7 of 7 is now history. Gloria is now off the Idarubicin & Cytarabine and on a standard IV plus antibiotic. Doc came to see her last night after Don & I went back at 10:30pm. We didn’t get to meet with Dr. Fein, and Gloria doesn’t remember much of their conversation but since we haven’t seen him today we plot our course for “steady as she goes.”

The psychologist visited with her and asked her how she felt about the statistical life span after chemo for a person of her age. Three to five years. Thanks for kicking her again with stupid bell curve numbers. How do I feel? Do I have a choice? I sat with her on her bed as she cried, telling us about her conversation. Hey, I yelled. Are you gonna be just another satistic? No she said as she blew her nose. “We’re Conchs and they don't call us fighting Conchs for nuthin'.” I wasn’t’ gentle with my tone…

At around 5pm, Dr. Fein’s Physician’s Assistant knocked. She was very confident with Mom’s condition. Although her white blood cells (WBC) are down at 0.5 (normal is 4.5 to 10, in thousands), they want to see what and how the WBCs are doing – are the overpopulating again? Are they mature and not blast cells? Neupogen injections will stimulate proliferation of WBC and the docs will monitor her counts. Time will tell.

Her reds (blood cells) are in the 9’s and have remained stable which is good. Platelets have come up to 44 and they were at 9 (thousands). Normal is 150 to 350. She’s still at risk of bleeding and not clotting, but the number is an improvement.

Eventually we will have to do another bone marrow biopsy. That is usually done after a second 3-day chemo treatment. That test will tell us more. In the meantime we’re going to keep testing the counts thru daily CBCs. So we’re at the end of the beginning and working towards the beginning of the rest of her life.