Chemo #5 was Wednesday

Chemotherapy was last Wednesday and this is the fifth course of Taxotere. The pattern is holding true. Sally feels well on the day of chemotherapy, on the two days after, and then on Saturday sometime around mid morning she starts to feel a little bit unwell. She can still eat but is resting a lot, perhaps not sleeping, but lying down. Sometime on Saturday and on early Sunday she starts having some vague shooting pains in her muscles or joints. Then, if the pattern holds true, on Monday she starts feeling much better and then starts to feel really well up until the time of the next chemotherapy. Each cycle, she has had a pattern like this, but the difference is that with each cycle, the period of feeling good is better than the previous cycle. For instance, in this last cycle she was feeling so well that she was driving around herself, going out with Lorrie, and cruising her favorite stores. She is even considering going up to Marburger, which is a small town in the hill country where there is an antique Festival every year about this time. This festival is at the end of March and we are not certain what the chemotherapy schedule will be at that time. Dr.Conlon wants to reevaluate after the fifth or sixth chemotherapy cycle. The problem is that it is difficult to determine what will be the parameters that will be followed for this reevaluation. I'm sure there will be some scans and some blood work but none of these things have been all that helpful in the past. Anyway, we shall see. As of now the lab results are pretty good. The platelets and white blood cells are normal and the last hemoglobin was 9.9 g/dl. The tumor markers have fallen by about half from their very high values in October. But they are still markedly elevated from normal. Anyway things have been going in the right direction as far as the lab data and Sally's feelings are concerned, and of course the way she is feeling is the most important thing.