A Milestone
It took me awhile to grasp this cancer lingo: A series of chemotherapy cycles is a course. In my course, each of the 8 cycles had two weekly treatments followed by one week rest. 24 weeks in all. TODAY, I finished that course of Gemzar and Cisplatin, the go-to first line of chemotherapy for Bile Duct Cancer at this time. I'm celebrating a milestone today! So, here's what's next. This week I'll go in for 2 more shots like I've been doing for about 2 months. It's to counteract one of the side-effects of chemo's superb talent for killing cells - whether or not they are good or bad. It's been killing off my infection-fighting cells called neutrophils. They've been too low to fight infection. The shots work, but don't bring the levels high enough so, I've turned into quite the hermit. On October 25th I will have another CT scan to measure the tumor and also spinal x-rays to rule out possible causes for the recent numbness and ...