I hate Cancer

Steve and I were able to come home Saturday evening.  He was actually feeling decent (in chemo/cancer terms) Saturday night.  Sunday he started feeling pretty bad.  He started feeling very weak, was very pale, and slept quite a lot.  Monday was even worse.  He didn't sleep much Sunday night because even though he was tired his anxiety was so bad it was keeping him awake (even after taking meds).  Monday morning he got a pretty bad nose bleed.  This happened to him after he was home from treatment cycle 1 also.  It took about 20-30 minutes to get the bleeding to completely stop.  He was very pale and frail looking yesterday.  I hate to see him that way.  His appetite has still not returned.  He did eat a grilled cheese and tomato soup a couple of days ago, but other than that since he has been home he has only had a few bites of cereal, and a few bites of pudding.  Standard protocol after leaving the hospital is to have your blood drawn every 2-3 days to check your platelets, white blood cell counts, etc.  Today was his scheduled today to go have his blood drawn.  It took every ounce of energy for him to get dressed, get to the car and get to the lab.  He came home and watched a little tv and then went back to sleep.  The nurse called me about 1:00pm and let me know that Steve's platelet count is 27.  This is very low. (This is why he got the nose bleed). A normal platelet count is 150-450.  Typically his runs between 40-60 at this stage of the treatment.  Even though he was not scheduled to have labs drawn again until Friday, they want him to go back tomorrow.   If his platelet count drops below 10, they will have to do a transfusion.   Hopefully when we go back tomorrow his counts will have come up!!!  We don't realllly want to have to do a transfusion!  If the blood count gets below 10, it is extremely dangerous.  It could cause fatal internal bleeding.  However, if it does go below 10, we will gladly take the transfusion!

UPDATE: Just got a call from the nurse. She said that after Dr. Kim looked further at Steven's blood work, he feels that it will be ok to wait until Friday to get his next blood draw. He thinks the numbers are low but where they should be on cycle #3. I asked if we could go ahead and do the blood work anyhow, because I know Steven and I will both be nervous waiting all the way until Friday! She said we could go ahead and have it redrawn, but to know that it could still go down a little more and not to be alarmed unless it is under 10. (Easy for her to say!)