Thanks to all who have expressed their concern and support as Amy progresses through her cancer treatment. For the benefit of those who are interested in following her progress, but who may be, er, somewhat less interested in other topics I post about, I decided to add a new category: Cancer Counterinsurgency (and added a list of categories to the left-hand column of the blog — I’ll also categorize such posts under Family and Friends and Health).
As of today, the main and side effects of the chemotherapy should be at or near their peak. On Monday, a blood test revealed her white blood cell count was very low, and even lower when it was retested on Wednesday, so she was given injections of some medication (don’t know the name) once daily for the past three days, and her white blood cell counts are all within acceptable ranges again. Given her extremely depressed immune system, we are still washing our hands frequently and thoroughly, just in case.
She has been experiencing gas, diarrhea and constipation at various times throughout the week; today she was having the worst gas pains of her life (though she thinks it was due more to a banana than anything else, and it has since dissipated). Being a generally tough cookie, she’s maintaining a good perspective throughout, and we are happy that, gas pain excepted, she has been doing so well through the treatment.
During a meeting on Monday, we found out that only one patient who has undergone this kind of treatment for anal cancer in the past 15 years (at Evergreen) has been able to continue straight through without a break of some kind, because of the harsh burns that typically develop in the pelvic region (due to the non-uniformity of skin surfaces and the extreme sensitivity of some of the tissue in that area). So, we are now prepared for the possibility of up to a one week "break" in the treatment sometime in the next three weeks.
We were also told that most of the side effects of the treatment should substantially subside within about four weeks following the end of treatment. They will not be able to do a biopsy to check on the [local] effectiveness of the treatment for four more weeks after that; if the cancer is gone from that region, she has a 90% chance of it having been "cured" … other milestones that may increase the probability of cure will occur at the 2-year and 5-year marks, assuming negative test results. So we’ll be optimistic about negativity.