Blood Clots #3 I feel like a pin cushion!

Dear friends,

I am grabbing a few minutes to give you an update. The short version is that there seems to be no reason for me getting blood clots in my calves that the doctors can discern. My thought that the medication I am on was causing it fell through when my oncologist told me that Femara hardly ever has that as a side effect. My naturopath said that maybe I am one of those 2 in a hundred that does get that side effect. So 8 tubes of blood were drawn and some testing is being done. I will find out the results in about 2 weeks.

I figured out that I have been poked 28 times in the last 10 days. I have been going to the anticoagulation clinic daily to have my Coumadin levels checked. Until my number was over 2.0, I had to give myself shots of Lovenox in my stomach 2 times a day. It is a faster acting anticoagulation med. That was so PAINFUL! The needle wasn’t too bad, but the medicine itself felt like a punch in the stomach. Then it hurt less after about 20 minutes. In general, my stomach is just sore with purple bruises at most of the shot sights, and I have been having flashbacks to chemo fatigue days. I am very tired

The Coumadin finally went from 1.9 to 3.7 on Wednesday night, so I was allowed to stop doing the shots. I am doing various amounts of Coumadin every night as they try to get my levels regulated. My legs are sore, but the compression stockings actually feel pretty good.

One thing that could cause all this is cancer. So they are scheduling me for an MRI and a CT to make sure things are OK in there. That should happen in the next few weeks. One other thing to pray about is that my white count went from 6.6 to 2.9 in 2 days when I began these meds. Five days later it was down to 2.5. They don’t know why this is happening either. My fertile imagination has me remembering those painful Neupogen shots I had to do during chemo for a low white count, so pray that I don’t have to do that. My oncologist is watching my levels pretty closely.

I am teaching 4 evenings this week at a Christian camp- missions to college freshmen in a leadership program. We have been preparing for months and are planning to go ahead. I also have a 3-5 minute skit for missions at VBS each morning this week and in between I plan to SLEEP! Tomorrow morning I have to be at the Anticoag. Clinic at 8:10, and then over to VBS by 8:30ish. We will drive back from camp tonight as it is only 35 minutes. We might stay there some of the other nights.

I so appreciate your love and prayers. Here we go again! Blessings on your day! Nancy