Long Day’s Journey

I’ve just passed my seventh hour in the infusion room, and I haven’t yet received chemo. Never failing to surprise me, the chemo process took an unexpected detour today. I came in around eight in the morning, the best time to receive chemo because the infusion room is usually pretty empty. The first step in an average day of chemo is having my blood drawn. It’s an important step because (ironically) they can’t administer chemo if I’m not well enough to receive it. In other words, I’ve got to be healthy enough to get poisoned. I’m usually waiting in a hospital room for a half hour or so while my blood is analyzed, typing away vigorously at my computer and catching up with friends on my new addiction, myspace.com. Afterwards, my team of doctors brings me the results of the labs. There was a look of shock on my doctors’ faces this morning. Apparently, my blood counts were low, dramatically low. I’m in my last week of chemo (for this round) and they informed me that not only am I neutropenic, but also fairly anemic. Suddenly it was like pieces of a puzzle came together. So that’s why I look pale as a ghost. So that’s why I’ve been freezing lately, no matter how many layers I put on. And why it feels like I’ve been hit with a ton of bricks every time I stand up. And why I didn’t feel up to working out yesterday. (Incidentally, I’m apparently the talk of the infusion room. No one can ever believe some of the things I do with low blood counts. My hikes, my exercise regime and the recent venture into yoga have truly earned me the title ‘chemo boy.’) So the day changed drastically for me. My next stop after the doctors’ office is the infusion suite, where I sit back in a lazy-boy chair and usually receive my chemo. But for the past five hours or so, my body’s been receiving blood in copious quantities. A blood transfusion gives me healthy blood full of high counts to balance out my low ones. It’s necessary in order to ensure that I can handle the strong drugs, and at this point, I feel worlds better. The good news is that none of this blood count silliness actually affects my ability to receive chemotherapy today (unlike a few weeks ago, when I was told to go home and let my blood counts recover for a full week). The only down side is that receiving blood is a long process. It feels like I’ve been in this chair forever. My butt’s numb. My sister Erin has been a dutiful attendant, bringing me snacks and occasionally fluffing my pillow.

I’m constantly surprised by this process. I would have imagined that, given the fact that I only have a week left in this particular round of chemotherapy, my counts would be inching towards normal. Just the opposite. Today forced me to reckon with a slightly intimidating thought: as long as I’m in chemo, I’m at risk of low counts, no matter what point I’m at in the process. It’s slightly frustrating, as I’ve been explaining to people that each round brings me from normal to low counts and then back up again. So much for that hypothesis. Cancer is a constant process of applying the scientific method. You never know what’s actually happening to you until you develop an educated guess about the situation, and test it against all the incoming evidence. Even then, most guesses are subject to new counter-evidence, as I learned this morning. Thus goes the rollercoaster. My day of chemo’s finally through. I’m gonna get out of this chair and try and get some feeling back in my butt.