We got home from this beautiful vacation last night at 2:00 am. And the house phone rang this morning pretty early. I never love answering the house phone because usually, it's a doctor or nurse calling or maybe school. All of which can give me a start. And this time it was my doctor. I have to do ANOTHER round of chemotherapy BEFORE I can even start the transplant process at all because somehow I am not in that beautiful remission that I was in before. UGH! Unbelievable! Stunned, I just asked to doctor to keep talking. Even if he repeated himself, I didn't care because none of it was computing anyway. Then I handed the phone to Andy. Boy, is he my go-to guy in these situations. When my brain will literally go into this mode where everything sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher. And Andy I know is always sharp. I know I call him a rock, and sharp a lot. But these things are always meant in the finest sense of the words.
Before we left for Morocco I had a meeting with the doctor. He said that the initial results from my bone marrow biopsy looked very good. We left it at that and that was great. But there are other tests they do on marrow that take longer for results to return. And in these tests it showed that my marrow had 5-10% blasts of leukemic cells. Most everyone has 5%, but beyond that, things are worrying. I'm not sure when or how this could have happened. I just finished a round of chemo and I'm pretty sure I went into it in remission. My bloodwork looked good, etc... But I guess not.
I think I sounded pretty scared on the phone with the doctor today because he said that in no way is he calling me to tell me that they can't do anything more for me. And that was a relief. It's just that because they do not plan to do my transplant with the myeloablative chemotherapy ( the really tough stuff that wipes you out) they need for me to be in complete remission or there's a significantly higher risk of relapse after transplant. So, they would like to do another round of chemotherapy with me before we more forward transplant-wise using a drug I've never had that they've excellent results with in the past.
My fabulous beautiful donor is on hold. God bless them. What a run around for them. And just like I had no information about what was going on with donors 1 & 2, Donor 3 has no information about me. It's just a worrying mystery to them. And I still look so forward to finally meeting them and telling them this crazy story and I hope they are not worrying too much now, because everything is going to be fine.
So, instead of a Leap Year birthday, it's going to be something else. I don't know what yet. All I know is that I go back into the hospital this Wednesday and start this round of chemo with this new drug. I will just put my nose to the grindstone and do it. My hope is that they will let me come and go as before until I'm compromised. And then I will recover from it, I will be in remission, and I will do the transplant soon after that. End of April maybe? I don't know.
I have seriously gone back to the NOT THINKING approach to life. I can't think about this. What's to think about? Nothing! I just have to do what I have to do. And continue to squeeze in the fun parts of life. When life gives you lemons... I am getting a little tired of lemonade honestly. I need a new recipe. A good ol' Long Island Iced Tea would work right now. Think the doctor would mind?
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