After the initial set back of this year with my increase in chemotherapy, I am more than relieved to say that the higher dosage is having the desired effects on my blood. I can happily say that the counts are steadily dropping, which is a real positive. However, this is sort of a double edged sword as while it shows that the treatment is definitely working well, it has some not so fun consequences on the rest of my body. Over the last couple of weeks I've found that I'm more prone to unexpected fatigue and sudden aching in my legs, as well as severe lapses in concentration. It's only in the last few days that I've started to feel quite nauseated.
This has all been quite strange for me because, during the run up to Christmas, I had felt very few ill effects of my treatment and now I'm experiencing some of "the classics"! However, the most serious ramification is that my immune system is now completely shot. I just have to be really careful not to get any kind of cold or infection as my body won't be able to do very much to defend itself. This state of non-existent immunity is called neutropenia which is caused by a massive reduction in my neutrophils but it's something that I haven't had to experience since the very start of my treatment . In all honesty, being neutropenic is no where near as dramatic as I expect I am portraying it to be and isn't not a huge deal at all. If my body adhered to "normal" treatment procedure then I'd be neutropenic far more often than I have been so far. As it is though, I'll take the next week or so especially carefully and with any luck my immune system will have recovered and I'll be feeling somewhat better!
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