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DiscussionLow hemoglobin and enlarged liver and spleen
Blood Cancers & Disorders | Last Active: Feb 5 8:23am | Replies (6)Comment receiving replies
Replies to "Thank you! Most days I'm very positive, but some days I just get tired of the..."
We all get tired of the process but it becomes a part of our life and we work around it. I've dealt with this situation since I was 60 yrs old. I'm now 76+ yrs old. At first things were not very bad and appointments/treatments were few and far apart. But as time went by things became much more often and involved. Traveling to treatments from our beautiful mountain home became such a task that we finally gave in, sold, and moved down to the city to be closer to the Cancer Clinic. About 3-4 yrs ago things reached the point that I was getting a CBC every week. Aranesp injections every two weeks, 2-Reblozyl injections every three weeks and 5 days in a row of Dacogen infusions every four weeks. Blood transfusions varied from each week to once every 6 weeks. Oncologist visits varied but were often. Some hospital time was squeezed into all of that. This went on until about 8-9 months ago when my blood counts got so low that they had to stop the Dacogen infusions. At that point they were out of options and I was encouraged to "Get my affairs in order". Within a couple of weeks of stopping treatments everything turned around drastically and very quickly. My CBC jumped up drastically and became virtually normal. I was no longer fighting to keep my HGB above 7, it jumped to over 13. All of my numbers looked good! Other than continuing to take Vonjo orally, all treatment was/has stopped because I no longer qualified for or needed any of it. I now get a CBC once a month. The last two showed that things are very slowly dropping but are still far from what they were and are still high enough that no treatment is required. It is likely that at some point I will need to re-start some type of treatment, but in the mean time the break from "the process" has been a God Sent. I an my family have enjoyed it and will be forever grateful for the treatments given to me by my wonderful Doctor. So yes... there were many days when I was just tired of the process, but it made me appreciate the good days that much more. Never say die and never give in.