Teresa has her first mid-chemo CT scan today. She has to start drinking the contrast at 11am. We check-in to Radiology at BRMC at 1pm and the CT is at 1:30pm. Fingers and toes crossed for good news!
She also, as of yesterday morning, has an appointment for blood work and an appointment with Dr. Musgrave, tomorrow after the CT scan. She has been very tired/fatigued, and we were hoping she could get IV iron. That had been the original plan before she was sent for the 2 units of blood a few weeks ago. But her iron is just high enough to make her ineligible for IV iron. 🙁
When Teresa received the 2 units of blood, her hemoglobin was 7.2. The lowest normal is 11.7 (this may vary slightly by hospital system, but that is what they look for here). The 2 units brought her up to 9.6 but it really didn’t do much for her energy levels.
So we’re going to see what her blood work says later today, and see what Dr. Musgrave has to say about the situation. This is most likely still chemotherapy-induced anemia, based on what we’ve been told so far. Hopefully they can do something to help her feel more like herself and help her have energy to actually get things she needs to do done, and get to do things she enjoys (like puzzles, painting ceramics, etc).
If anyone reading this has any general insight, or if you’ve had a similar experience, we’d appreciate hearing from you. She does try to eat iron rich foods when she can. The week or so after the taxotere is always hard though, because it screws up her sense of taste.
As far as the CT goes, again, I don’t know how soon we’ll know something. I’m hoping that since we have the appointment with Dr. Musgrave afterwards, that they can rush the results (they have before) so we don’t have to wait a week to find out. I will update here about that as soon as I can.