Visit to the doctor

As you know, Andrea had a appointment today with her hematologist-oncologist to discuss her future chemo treatment. In all, it went well for Andrea and answered many of her questions. Andrea has four rounds of chemo left and they are called "maintenance" rounds. They are supposed to be the easiest rounds. They are the easiest because they have a lower dose of certain chemo drugs than what Andrea received in previous rounds. Her first maintenance round will start next Monday. It will be require about 3-4 days in the hospital as compared to her previous rounds which required 5-6 days in the hospital.

Also, as you know, the chemo treatments that Andrea had caused her to have really bad infections as compared to other cancer patients. Therefore, our doctor wants to proceed through these maintenance rounds very cautiously. He actually had a thought that Andrea may not need them at all. He thinks she may already be fully cured and these maintenance rounds are simply precautionary. Andrea, however, wants to beat the cancer once and for all and she wants to go through as much chemo as possible to make sure it does not return. Additionally, she still may have a fungal infection and giving chemo will drop her counts causing the infection to return. Thus, the doctor and Andrea have to carefully balance giving her more chemo and curing the cancer long term versus putting Andrea's well being in jeopardy short term by giving her more chemo.

Therefore, to address both her long term and short term well being, our doctor will be cutting the dose that she would have normally received in her first maintenance round by 1/2 to see how Andrea's body responds to the treatment. If she is ok through the first round, then in the second maintenance round he will reduce her dose by 1/4. Then, if is still doing okay, he will give her the full dose of chemo during her last two maintenance rounds. As I said earlier, these maintenance rounds already are a smaller dose, but the doctor still wants to be on the safe side. This way he can ease Andrea through these rounds and still not take away very much chemo. Also, the doctor thinks that these rounds aren't as important anyway as the ones she has already received, so reducing these rounds by a small amount will hopefully not affect Andrea at all in the long run. Additonally, she will be prophylacticly be on anti-fungal and anti-bacterial medication throughout her chemo rounds in order to take care of the fungal infection she has and maybe prevent further fungal/bacterial infections.

So, looks like there is a solid plan in place for Andrea's future treatments. Andrea felt good about this plan and I think it makes good sense for her. I am hoping these next few rounds will truly be less painful to her and I am optimistic that she will make it through.