Taking a Breather from Chemo

How ironic we made it to complete remission (!!!) without any infections and then after all this time...WHAMMY

So today was supposed to be a chemo day but unfortunately treatment had to get pushed back until next week. Andrew has been fighting a nasty head cold that settled in his chest the other day and is leaving him in coughing spasms and struggling for air at times. Since he already has such low counts, chemo has to get put off so that we don't wipe out what few fighters he has left in his immune system. Good news was that he had a chest x-ray today and it looked normal.

The other piece of the puzzle is that one of the chemotherapy agents that he gets, Bleomycin, can in some cases cause pulmonary fibrosis (lung damage). So far he has already had pulmonary function tests twice and between these tests and the PET scan and the chest x-ray today, there has been absolutely no suspicion that this has occured. However, just to be on the safe side he will go in tomorrow to repeat the breathing tests. If it appears that there has been any damage then they will remove the Bleo from the chemo cocktail for his last three treatments.

Either way (Bleo or no Bleo), the remaining treatments are each getting pushed back a week. We rescheduled today's round for next Tuesday, so long as he is well enough. Unfortunately that means we have to cross out the exclamation points on the calendar on April 14th because now our new "end date" will hopefully be April 20th. And while 6 days is no lifetime, it does feel like a major punch to the gut (don't worry, nobody is punching my pregnant belly other than the baby on the inside) when you have been waiting for that day for 6 months.

So please pray that Andrew can fight off this infection soon, and that it is just the virus that is causing his hard time breathing and not any sort of permanent damage.