Anticipation - March 18, 2014

When you have injection treatments one week out of every month it takes getting used to the waiting between these chemo sessions. Monday began my second round of treatment. I'm hoping it goes smoothly with little if any side affects. Monday was also a full Complete Blood Count (CBC) test and an appointment with Dr. Young, my Oncologist. This will be our 2nd full month under her care.

The more time I have the more I spend reading.  Unfortunately, reading about MDS has been a frequent subject. The more I read the more I shouldn't.  Being informed is a good thing. When the information is not easy to digest, is not good news but rather bad news, being informed is still good. This condition, in my case, is not good.  It seams to be something that usually leads to much worse consequences. Apparently, most of the treatment options, to include the current course prescribed for me, attempt to slow down the progression of the disease. The goal is to give me a prolonged life expectancy as well as to hopefully have my blood levels return to a more acceptable condition.  While a cure is not in the plans, we are hopeful it will get better.

The current chemo treatment is intended to kill the bad blood cell "blasts" and to help my bone marrow to manufacture more healthy blood cells.  While its too soon to tell if the treatments are working Dr. Young appears encouraged, so far since my blood levels are not getting much worse and a few indicators have improved, slightly.