My chemo journey seems to bring me something new each week! One of my  biggest challenges with the Gemzar has been keeping my white count high enough to even get chemo, and also to avoid bacterial infection. It seems vaguely humorous that you need drugs to treat the side effects of the drugs needed to fight cancer.  It’s like the Inception (a dream within a dream) of cancer.  My latest challenge is the need to generate healthy bone marrow.  The best means of doing this appears to be Neulasta, a drug which stimulates bone marrow production.My cancer fighting chemotherapy is indiscriminate about which cells it kills, and it has been attacking my white blood cells.  Those infection fighting white blood cells are developed in the bone marrow.  We need to get the cell party started deep within my bone marrow.  To say that my last experience with Neupogen (another bone marrow booster) did not go well, would be a huge understatement.  The bone pain I felt from that was just excruciating.  But here’s a fun fact: Evidently Claritin fights bone pain.  Who knew? I always wonder who was the first person to figure out that taking something off label could help something else.  I started the Claritin today and will continue for a 3 days post chemo. The current plan is chemotherapy on Friday morning, and then the dreaded Neulasta on Saturday (24 hours after chemo). Then, let the fun begin.

Maybe it would just be easier to take Skele-gro!