Low red blood cells
I still don’t have anything too exciting to report. Mom is doing really well and is feeling pretty good. She had an awful week a couple of weeks ago. They changed her chemo but I didn’t write the name of it down. She didn’t get out of bed for almost 3 days until we made her go to the hospital to get fluids. She couldn’t hold any food down, was clammy and feverish and scarily lethargic. After that week she was getting winded very easily and it had us worried. When they measured her oxygen level, she was all the way down to 82 and 88 is considered dangerous because you could faint upon standing. The cause turned out to be a low red-blood cell count. They gave her a shot of Aranesp to boost her count and she has been a lot less winded but she still keeps trying to do too much!!
They lowered her dose of the new chemo and now she is prepared for the side effects so we hope the next round goes better. Mom is still convinced it wasn’t the chemo alone that did her in. She thinks she may have had a stomach virus which coincided with the new chemo. Either way, we are just glad she made it through the rough week. Even the nurses at the hospital said they were relieved that she now looks so much better and back to her self. They worried when she looked so weak and exhausted! They are used to her bubbly personality and always having a smile on her face.
