Radiation and Chemotherapy Are Finished!

I can hardly believe it!!  The title says it all.  Of course, radiation has been finished for a few weeks now, but chemo was over yesterday so my "treatment" is done.  Of course, there will be a lot of things done to me in the next months and years checking me out and over, but this stage is done.  The healing can begin in earnest.  This time it should be just chemo healing without the complications of radiation involved.  

I am SO tired right now, but it is so hard to sleep with my mouth as dry as it is because it just gets drier and hurts more. Last night, I didn't have much trouble, so I'm hoping for the same tonight and just hanging in here, tired or not, for now.  

These photos are all taken on the "Last Day".

For some unknown reason, my right arm was all swollen so I had a doppler ultrasound done on it, to see if there was a blood clot, but there wasn't. So, they next wanted to check the port catheter with dye, to make sure it was hooked up properly, but we had to wait an hour for that so....

..... the ultrasound people wrapped me up well to meet the Cancer Center people and squeezed the chemo treatment in quickly before I went to radiology for the dye scan. 

In, for chemo.

And out again, NO MORE CHEMO!!

YAY!!!!

By, the way, there is nothing wrong with the port, everything is fine, and my arm swelling is starting to reduce.  

I did go into the cancer center today to have the shot that stimulates the body to make lots of white blood cells. The second and third rounds of chemo have landed me in the hospital, with my white blood count going nearly to the bottom, almost to zero.  The the body can't heal and I get sores I in my mouth.  I couldn't take the shot the other times because it doesn't work while radiation is going on, but they are hoping it will do the trick this time and not only keep me out of the hospital, but also keep me the healing.  The body doesn't heal without the white blood cells. 

It sounds so good that this stage is done, but it is also the beginning of another stage, the recovery stage, which will take its time, too. I'm anxious to see progress made, and I'm sure everyone else is, too, but it will be slow going, I'm afraid.   

It isn't over, yet, folks, over the next couple of weeks, I will being have blood drawn to make sure my red blood counts are fine, too. If they go down, I could go into the hospital again. I hope I don't. 

Time to start climbing back out!