May 17: Still Largely Unimpressed by Chemo

I stopped in to see Stacey this afternoon and found her in the kitchen getting a snack. There seemed to be quite a bit of lounging going on, and she said that she felt “tired and full of chemicals, but otherwise not bad.”

So! Pretty good for a woman whose bod is full of toxic goo racing around killing off cancer cells left and right. As we speak.

She did go in to the treatment center for a shot of Neulasta, which boosts red blood cells. This is apparently a huge and important breakthrough in cancer treatment — use to be, they could only give chemo treatments every three weeks, because that’s how long it took for the body to build up the red blood cells to handle another blast. Now, Stacey gets a blood cell boost the day after chemo, and they’re able to hit her again in two weeks, giving the cancer cells less time to regroup. As a matter of fact, and this is really interesting, what with the Procrit and the Neulasta and the iron supplements and everything, her red blood cells are going to be bigger and healthier than they have been in many years (because of the anemia that she’s had forever.)

Dr. Browne was very pleased with her reaction to the chemo, because this means that they can continue with these treatments and have many more options for future treatments.

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