2 down, 4 to go

I was able to have my 2nd round of chemo yesterday! My white blood cell count went up to 2.2 (and really only needed to get from 1.2 on Fri to 1.5 yesterday). I have some theories as to why, that may be a little “out there” I admit. My brother and sister in law came down from Maine to visit on Saturday and she did Reiki on me. I’ve had Reiki a few times now and the main thing I’ve gotten out of it is feeling relaxed and calm. Post-surgery I did get some pain relief but since I’m not really in acute pain now it’s been more of a help for my emotional state. Anyway, while she was doing it I was laying there praying and visualizing my white blood cells increasing. I have always known what a powerful tool visualization is but haven’t used it in a long time. There are studies in medical journals that suggest a correlation among people who visualize their cancer cells being destroyed by the chemotherapy and higher success rates. So yesterday, I stole an idea that some people use where they imagine the chemo as pac man and visualize it chomping up the bad cancer cells. It sounds kind of crazy but it’s truly amazing what the mind can do. I’m sure God and all of the other prayers and positive energy I received from everyone also helped!

We also received some positive news about my CA-125 tumor marker test yesterday. My first test, pre-surgery was 63, which is considered “borderline” for cancer and frankly, pretty low for Stage III ovarian cancer. It had gone down to 43 just before I had my first chemo (which was 3.5 weeks after my surgery). Apparently inflammation can impact this number (which can make it unreliable and is one of the reasons they don’t use it as a screening test for all women) so sometimes it goes up after surgery even after the cancer is removed – mine didn’t. And, before chemo yesterday morning mine had gone down to 9! Under 35 technically means no cancer so this is very good news. It appears the chemo is working. But before anyone gets too excited (namely, me) they’ll want to see that number hover in this same range for about 3 sessions in a row. So we continue to hope and to pray. But it was a good day. A long day (we were at the hosp for 10 hours) but a successful days. Thank you to everyone who is cheering me on. Keep it up!