This Wednesday, 2/26/2020, my Doctors revealed what they thought of my last MRI. What they think is very important because generally what they think is what I think. What they saw were a few spots. The spots might be bleeding, might be tumor. The spots were not nice enough to explain what they were.
Chemo brought my platelets way, way down. That can make it hard for bleeding to stop. Now, after some time and two transfusions, my platelets seem to be rebounding as my white blood cell counts are dropping. I’m told this is not an irregular pattern for the chemo I was on (CCNU). Speaking of chemo, I’m done with this chemo. It’s suggested to do between 6 and 8 rounds. I did 7.
Instead of an MRI every two months, I’m going to have an MRI next month to compare and contrast to this one. Hopefully the spots look like they were bleeding that got filtered out. In the near future, I won’t be doing Avastin infusions either. Avastin is not a chemo. Actually it’s an antibody that prevents the formation of new blood vessels. While that’s a good thing for fighting cancer (tumors make new blood vessels at a high rate), that’s bad if you want stop bleeding. If you want both, like me, you’re between a rock and a hard place.
There has been a lot to contrast with in the last decade. I was in the hospital for over a month in 2010-11, I’ve had five brain surgeries, and just recently, I was very sick. I couldn’t really eat. Crackers, smoothies, and bone broth were my only sustenance because that was all I could keep down…kind of keep down. Despite such a varied and full diet, I lost a lot of weight and a lot of strength. I didn’t have much energy.
In the next month that’s my goal. Strength and weight. Oh, and to have the spots have been bleeding since filtered out by my body. I think I have more control over my strength and weight though. I’m slowly increasing the amount I’m able to eat, the amount I can stretch, and the amount I exercise - I move pretty slowly in general so a slow increase really presents the only option. Then, in a month, I’ll have another MRI that hopefully sheds some light on what’s going on.