The Battle is Rejoined (Week 3 update)

After an 8-day radiotherapy cease-fire, Amy's platelet (PLT) and white blood cell (WBC) counts increased above the threshold required for the resumption of daily radiation treatments this past Tuesday, so she has completed another [nearly full] week of treatment ... and we are hopeful that she can continue on with the remaining two weeks of scheduled treatment without another break.

The symptoms I've mentioned in previous posts (fatigue, diarrhea, gas, itching) persist, although the radiotherapy hiatus has given her skin time to heal a bit, so the itching has diminished and the bleeding -- which I had forgotten to mention, until Barb mentioned this side effect in a recent comment -- has subsided.  I also forgot to mention that she has been on a restricted fiber diet to minimize gas, stool quantity and diarrhea; this has been difficult because we traditionally eat high-fiber foods (she especially misses fresh fruit).  One more reason for wanting to complete treatment as soon as possible.

Among the things we learned from our meetings with doctors this week:

• Low WBC counts in the second week following chemotherapy and low PLT counts in the third week following chemotherapy are "normal" (I think our chemical oncologist had mentioned this during our initial meeting, but I'd forgotten). 
• The chemicals used in chemotherapy kill fast-growing cells, such as cancer cells, but also including WBC and PLT cells (which -- surprise, surprise -- reproduce in approximately two and three weeks, respectively).
• Chemical oncologists and radiation oncologists [obviously] employ different approaches to accomplish the same result (eradication of cancer).  However, in addition to different methods, it appears they often have different perspectives on what is safe and reasonable during the course of treatment.  In particular, our chemical oncologist has a higher threshold for lower blood counts ... and is willing to help use chemistry (e.g., G-CSF injections) to help maintain those counts at the higher levels that will pass the lower threshold of risk that our radiation oncologist is willing to accept in order to continue treatment.  Better living through chemistry!
• We were told there is a "high probability" that the treatment will trigger menopause ... the silver lining of which (for me) is the correspondingly lower probability that I will need to move forward with plans for a vasectomy.

I'll finish off this update with a link to an article entitled "Cancer: It's a Growth Industry" (an interview of Dr. Samuel Epstein by David Ross, originally appearing in Z Magazine in October 2003), in which Dr. Epstein questions the priorities and highlights the environmental, economic and political factors in our "war on cancer" ... reminding me of questionable priorities in other "wars".