This has been another difficult week for Allison. 

On Sunday, shortly after my last update, she spiked a fever and was admitted to the hospital for three days to rule out infection. Thankfully, all of the tests came back normal, and the fever didn’t last, so she was able to come home. Still, each hospital stay feels a little more demoralizing. 

While she was there, she received platelets and blood, and her ANC has remained extremely low, between 0-10, for the entire past week. Thankfully, the hospital is implementing a new policy where “low-risk” patients (those with solid tumors, rather than blood cancers where the immune system is more directly affected) don’t have to stay admitted until their ANC recovers. That’s been a huge blessing, because otherwise we would still be in the hospital. 

She received platelets again last Friday in the clinic and had a long weekend at home. She has been extremely exhausted and easily winded. Even walking to the bathroom, she has to take breaks along the way at times, and the bathroom is right next to her room. She’s sore from being in bed so much, but also from the strain of walking on only one side and using her upper body strength to use the walker when she is up. 

At her appointment yesterday, her ANC was still just 10 (it needs to be above 240 to move forward with chemo). She’s also dealing with severe mouth sores, which have made eating really difficult, though thankfully she’s still able to stay hydrated. Her hemoglobin was down to 7, so she received two units of blood. Platelets still looked ok (in the 30s). They also were concerned because her oxygen levels were dropping into the 80s and her resting heart rate was very high, so they ordered a CT scan to rule out a blood clot or other causes. The blood transfusion helped improve both her heart rate and oxygen levels, but they did the scan anyways as a precaution. 

The good news is that there was no clot. There were some signs of inflammation and possible infection at the base of her lungs, but since she doesn’t have a fever, they’re not treating that right now. The more concerning finding was that they saw additional nodules in her lungs. We’ve been told not to worry, as they could be related to the inflammation or infection, but given her history of osteosarcoma, they do want to follow up in the short term to make sure they resolve. 

For now, I'm doing my best not to dwell on that and to focus on supporting Allison as she continues to recover from this last cycle of chemo. The plan is to go back for labs again on Thursday and do any transfusions as needed. Also planning to possibly see PT Thursday as well and do some more red light therapy for the mouth sores. If her counts recover and her mucositis improves, we’re anticipating to move forward with the next chemo cycle next Tuesday. We are really hoping to avoid further delays, as they can reduce the effectiveness of treatment and make this already long process feel never ending. Unfortunately, like most everything else, that is out of our control and we will just continue to support and pray Allison through this. We would truly appreciate your prayers that the lung nodules are related to infection and not cancer, and that Allison starts to feel better soon and is able to eat again.