Well Happy New Year and heres to my first blog of 2011.
Hope you all had a safe and happy holiday season. Mine was very quiet. Did a lot of running around on Thursday which completely done me in for Hogmanay and the rest of the weekend. Must have caught a bit of a bug. Just felt aches and pains as you generally do with a flu, nevertheless I have to be careful as my immune system is already compromised with the chemo. Spent the majority of it in bed except for the 4 hours I spent at Toronto General on Saturday evening as my temperature broke 38 degrees Celsius. All was well though, my white blood cell count (also known as Neutrophils) was good. I was sent home with a script for antibiotics.
Woke up feeling much better yesterday and ready to start my second cycle of chemo. One third down!! Met with my oncologist who advised to push forward with the chemo despite the weekends setback as sticking to the schedule is key. I certainly don't want to lose any ground gained in my fight over a 3 day flu. He did however write another script for Neupogen which is a white cell booster shot to be taken every two days after my 5 day week. This will stimulate the growth of new white blood cells after my chemo which should help to ward off infections. It does not come cheap though and I am very grateful of my drug plan provided by my employer. If I was self employed or my employer had no drug benefits and I had to pay the full cost of the medications, I would be out close to $1800 and thats with 6 six weeks left to go!
So daily chemo has started again. I realise this because I went to bed last night at 11p.m. and have been wide awake since 3:30a.m. T.V. programming is pretty bad at the best of times but its really awful in the middle of the night. As I scroll through the channels I am hypnotized by The Shopping Network and wonder how on earth I have managed to survive all this time without a Magic Bullet Blender.
9 down 12 to go.
Livestrong!
You must get a Magic Bullet! It's the best thing since sliced bread. :)
ReplyDeleteYOu know those commercials that show Canadians talking about losing everything to the cost of treatment for cancer etc...
ReplyDeleteI used to wonder how could that be? WE live in Canada. WE have free health care. How can a Canadian have to sell their home and their other possessions in exchange for their life...?
When my father was diagnosed with mesothelioma I found out the truth. HIs Chemo wasn't covered by the government, medical plan or hospital fund... his Chemo cost over 6000.00 per treatment. One tiny little vial of drug was 6000.00... WOW!
IT was his savings or his life. Fortunately(??) HIs cancer was industrial caused by exposure to asbestos in the work place so at the very last minute Workman's Comp stepped up and paid for the drug.
Dad was prepared to pay for the treatment himself and he was lucky to have the funds to do so.... what about all the people who don't?
Happy New Year Tom! Was looking forward to toasting in the New Year with you and Janice at L & J's, but glad you decided to wrestle the bug down. The bug flying around has been taking out people here at work for 4-5 days at a time, so would cautiously suspect your immune system is still kicking ass better than most if you conquered it in 3. One less thing to fret about when the financials are more or less taken out of the equation. I remember this when our first born was premature by 2 months and the Mt. Sinai said that the cost of neonatal care would over $250K,.... BUT it was all covered by OHIP. You have had enough Magic Bullets without ordering more from S.C.
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