This Week -- Blurry Vision and Delayed Chemo

On Wednesday Nadine's counts weren't back up high enough -- it meant the next chemo round was delayed. It panicked me a bit, but everyone assured me it happens to most people at some point and wouldn't hurt her. Rather than testing her on Friday and giving her the chemo if her counts went back up, they decided she'd best wait a week so her body could more fully recover from the last onslaught. The antibiotic (Bactrum) she takes to protect her from pneumococcal pneumonia (which is relatively common and harmless to most people but scarily dangerous to her) was pronounced the most likely suspect for the delayed counts. It'll be replaced with another antibiotic, nicknamed "The Yellow Paint", looking like yellow paint with an obnoxiously gritty texture. It's supposed to be really gross, which is why they tried the nicer one first.

She still got the weekly injection of asparaginase into her front-leg muscle. This one hurts.

Nadine suddenly needs reading glasses, as her close-up vision got blurry -- her eyes changed to being farsighted-- it's known as a side effect from one or two of the "symptom" medicines (fortunately not the chemo). She grabbed my reading glasses and they worked. Although they'll experiment to see what's doing it, Nadine said she'd gladly put up with needing glasses rather than going back to being super-nauseated and having too much "spit". Weird stuff popping up again. The medical staff is trying to figure out what to do with this one.

It was a long day in clinic as everyone was wildly busy, and it ran late until they found out her blood counts. This was followed by the usual hour-long wait after the aspariginase injection, to make sure there was no reaction. We ran into Melissa and her son Vasilli, who is her age and was admitted to the hospital for leukemia about a year ago. He's back dancing ballet. We shared notes before his meds were ready.

She was pretty exhausted Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday and spent most of the day upstairs, still enjoying listening to the fiddle camp and enjoying the picnic, but resting a huge amount. She seems to come "out" some later in the day.