Half Way There

Mom completed week 2 of cycle 2 yesterday, which puts her just about at the half way point of her 4 total cycles. All of her electrolytes (sodium, potassium, etc.) were perfectly on target, and her creatinine was 1.1 which is the lowest it's been since her surgery in December! These are the sorts of things that really get us pumped in this household. She was slightly anemic, so Judy administered an EPO injection. Erythropoietin is a natural hormone secreted by the kidneys that stimulates red blood cell production in the bone marrow. Most people who have little to no kidney function need regular EPO injections, but this was not due to lack of kidney function, but more the common side effect of cellular lysis (or destruction) by our good friend, chemo.

Her white blood cells were within normal limits, but trending downwards, and since her team would prefer to avoid another neutropenic (or neutral penis, depending on how you role) episode, she'll also get another neulasta injection this afternoon at 2pm. Overall she's feeling pretty tired today, but is going to try and get a few hours of work in before her injection, then head home for a siesta.

To every one's surprise, Mom's hair is still hanging in there. We have reason to believe that this might be so because she gets her cisplatin split over the course of two rounds rather than in one shot. In other words, she gets 1/2 week 1 and half week 2 of each cycle, whereas it is typically administered all at once during the first week. It might be taking twice as long to really rampage her hair cells, which I was assured is not any sort of indicator of if the chemo is doing its job or not- some people are just lucky!

Sure enough, today on the commencement of her 55th year, she thinks way more hair bit the dust when she was blow-drying than normal. She's going to ride it out for the day and see what happens, but I have a feeling the ceremonial buzz may be in our near future. I personally think everyone should ring in their mid-50's bald.