Back to the Cancer Clinic on Monday

Hi all.

I wanted to let you guys know about this yesterday, and just ran out of time. This post is a little brief but just wanted to fill you in.

Wednesday's visit with the new oncologist was OK. She was much more approachable than the previous doctors we've encountered and spent a lot of time with us. I asked her to do a blood test because Dave has all the symptoms of Vitamin B12 deficiency. (This is possible with vegans as this is the only nutrient that you can't get from a plant based diet. It usually takes a while to manifest but I thought it was worth checking.) She agreed to do it and said she'd check some other stuff as well.

Thursday morning they called me and said that the blood test came back and Dave's red blood cell count is low (anemia) and he needs a blood transfusion to receive 2 units of blood. The soonest they could do it is Monday at 9 and it takes about 6 hours. Dave has been extremely fatigued, and yesterday and today were worse. (He is absolutely exhausted, and just wants to sleep. Going out for even a 5 minute walk right now is out of the question.) If I had realized how quickly he would feel so bad, I would have tried to push for it to be done today. Although Dave isn't keen on receiving blood, (hates needles and blood) he should feel much better after the transfusion. It should make a big difference in his overall wellness.

Anemia is apparently pretty common in cancer patients, and can be caused by a number of things or a combination of things. It can be from the cancer, chemotherapy also causes anemia, and it can be caused by a B12 deficiency. I asked about the test result for that and the nurse said it hadn't come back yet. Apparently they only do those test once a week, and so it will be a while. As I research a little more I'm wondering why they wouldn't automatically check for anemia in cancer patients, especially after we told the other oncologist three weeks ago, and the surgeon last week, about how poorly Dave was feeling. All the symptoms we described to both of them are anemia symptoms, and it's common in cancer patients. ??? And even more common in patients that have received the chemotherapy drugs that Dave did. ???

Anyway, that's what's going on right now. For those of you that are of the praying kind, please pray that Dave doesn't feel too badly this weekend as we wait for treatment. And of course, keep praying that the cancer is being destroyed..

Touch base later.

Val