by Christie Perkins

I gasped a little. Maybe I shouldn’t have. It’s silly to gasp when something is exactly what you want it to be. Perfect bloodwork. Yeah. I mean, really, who doesn’t want replenished white armored army warriors for bloodwork? You see, I was climbing back out from under my neutropenic plunk and my white blood cells and neutrophils were normalizing. I was gaining my fighting power back.

Again.

Each time I take my Ibrance pills my blood goes scuba diving.

But my gasp was not an element of birthday party surprise, it was credited to the boogie man lurking in the dark surprise. You see, the recovery from my last neutropenic plunk only meant one clear thing: If my white blood cells and neutrophils are up that means I have to start my new chemo pill. My current medication isn’t giving me the kapow I need.

So a new pill means new side effects, new adjustments, and reestablishing my new norm. Ugh.

Over the last 8 months my doctor has continuously dropped my current chemo pill dosing to avoid my blood levels from crashing. Each month we hope the new dosing will level out my fighting power but with each month I skid on the bottom before I get to the end of the cycle. It takes a while to get me normalized before trying the new reduced dosing. My clearance chemo isn’t quite cutting it.

And in the process my tumors have been getting hungry and beefing up. Continue reading →