Admitted 19th February 2018
Vincrystine
Cyclophosphamite
Doxarumicin
Discharged 22nd February 2018
Round 6 was a repeat of round 4, only 4 days but intensive. The now usual loss of appetite and general grumpiness set in for a few days. Ongoing digestive tract issues continued to make things challenging. Her bowels would swing from constipation to diarrhea in a single day. We were discharged on Thursday and Erika returned to her happy self most of the time quite quickly.
The following Wednesday, she developed a fever and we went straight to the emergency department and antibiotics were started as per usual. Her neutrophils were zero meaning her immune system was non-existent. She was very tired, so she needed red blood cells the following day and platelets the next. Fevers were bought under control and her neuts came back up so we were out by the following Monday. She was running around the deck and giggling as soon as we got home.
Drawing in hospital after coming in with a fever
Dr Tim wanted a bone marrow aspiration and a CT scan, both under separate general anesthetics, before we went any further. The bone marrow samples showed no cancer cells. CT was more for upcoming surgery so they could plan the procedure.
We had a couple of extra weeks for Erika to recover fully before her next big step, surgery. We were allowed to go home to Toowoomba for a few days in between visits to Tim. The anxiety for her surgery was growing.
We prided ourselves on taking everything one step at a time and not getting too far ahead. Well now there it was, this big monster, staring us in the face. We had a date, 26th of March 2018. She had tolerated treatment well so far and we had gotten into a rhythm but none of that mattered now. This would trump all previous treatment. Surgery was risky, and there were no guarantees. They had to try and remove as much of the primary tumour as possible. She would be on the table for at least 8 hours, maybe more.
Erika’s surgeon was the best and if Tim trusted her, as he did, then we could too. We had every faith in her, but just not the cancer and Erika’s body’s reaction to the procedure. This was beyond big. We had no idea how long Erika would be out of action after surgery. We wanted to give her a special day before surgery so we decided to take her to Sea Life on the Sunshine Coast. It would be fairly quiet if we went during the week so she wouldn’t be exposed to too many risks. We had an excellent day and she thoroughly enjoyed the day, as did Nicole and I.
Sea Life
Sea Life
We were just about to do that thing where we put her in mortal danger to save her life again, but big time. It’s a struggle between your heart and head. The heart says ‘No way, don’t do this to her!’ but the head knows we must. If we don’t, she will certainly die.
