Running on a Half Tank

I had my 12th treatment yesterday (YAY!), but I also found out when I had blood work done that all the extra iron i was eating didn't help raise my hemoglobin count. In fact, they dropped even more. My chemo nurse told me there is a point that your body just can't produce any more red blood cells because there is nothing for the iron to stick too. Apparently I was probably at that point last week but they let me try anyway.

The good news is it didn't delay treatment so I'm still through with the first series of drugs, including the weekly injection treatments and the daily trial pill. Starting next week, I go for the first of only 4 more treatments every other week, ending November 13 before we start talking surgery. My chemo nurse, who seems to know quite a bit, told us that the worst part of this new set of meds is the exhaustion. It's not from the chemo meds but from the medicine they give me to help my body produce more white blood cell. It makes my body work 24hrs a day instead of the regular 12, so I'll probably be quite tired. We'll see. She also told me that I'm going to loose the rest of my hair. If what little is left starts falling out in clumps again, I'll most likely go ahead and shave it all off. Enough of this comb over look :) I can probably handle it at this point but I wasn't ready when it started falling out.

I still haven't had any shortness of breath as a result of the low hemoglobins but I have noticed that when I walk up stairs at my typical pace of two at a time, my heart races a bit. In fact my pulse was a little high yesterday morning when they checked it but all my other vitals are good so I'm still getting plenty of oxygen. The only other thing I noticed was when they gave me Benadryl before chemo, it hit me hard and would have put me to sleep if I hadn't been trying to eat lunch. My nurse said that was because I was running on a "half tank," my hemoglobin count is about half that of a typical female so the meds affected me more.

So, long story short, I'm getting a blood transfusion today at the actual Mayo Hospital where I'll have my surgery. It'll take about 4 hours which is actually longer than my chemo treatments but they should get my numbers back where they should be. And maybe through these next 4 treatments I'll be a little more proactive about my iron intake to help keep those numbers up so I won't have to get anymore.

Hanging out in the waiting room...for TOO long!