Reinforcements Arrive before the Final Battle (Week 4 update)

It occurs to me that we're actually at the end of week 5 since the start of Amy's cancer treatment, but given that she had a week-and-a-day hiatus from radiotherapy, this can still be considered the end of week 4 based on the number of treatments (20) ... and that way the headers on my weekly posts are more consistent.

We have some good news this week.  Amy's mother, Mary Lou, arrived from Wisconsin Thursday night and will stay until next Saturday.  We expect that the next two weeks will be the most challenging, and so we are grateful for her willingness to come out and help us through this period.

This past week, Amy's white blood cell (WBC) counts were low again (especially her neutrophils), and so she was given G-CSF injections on both Monday and Tuesday to keep her WBC levels within the range of acceptable risk for continuing radiation.  With only 5 radiotherapy treatments (one week) left, we want to avoid any further breaks.  Amy's fatigue has increased, but she has been having less gas and has had no diarrhea for nearly 3 days (!).  We anticipate that this respite will be shortlived, though, a sort of calm before the storm.

Next week, she will undergo another round of chemotherapy, in conjunction with the final week of radiotherapy, essentially a reply of her first week of treatment. [Note: I just corrected my first post in this thread of "cancer counterinsurgency", in which I incorrectly stated that she would be undergoing 5 weeks of chemotherapy; it will be a total of 5 weeks of radiotherapy and 2 weeks of chemotherapy.]  Monday she will get another injection of Mytomycin and be outfitted with another infusion pump to administer Fluorouracil (5FU) over the course of the week.  Our chemical oncologist told us on Monday that the first administration of the drugs creates the most significant "shock" to the body, so when the second round of drugs is administered, the body will adapt a little better ... and so the side effects attributable solely to chemotherapy should be somewhat milder.  However, there will still likely be significant side effects from the chemotherapy, and they will continue one to two weeks after this coming week.  And since the side effects of radiotherapy are cumulative, we're still bracing ourselves for the worst ... but at least we can see the light at the end of the tunnel ... and we have some extra help during the start of the final stretch.