30/04/2008 week 2 day 3

Danni had her latest blood test in the morning. Report showed her white blood cell index had a sharp drop to 2800 from over 7000 a week ago. In normal body it should be over 5000. It should be over 4000 to be good enough to receive chemotherapy.

We wondered if this was caused by the compound effect of recent two chemotherapy courses. Last time we saw it significantly deteriorated from over 9000 to 5000 at about 14 days after the first courses. It was 14 days after the second course this time.

It surprised her physician too. For that, two doses of booster prescribed to ‘push’ bone marrow to produce more cells.

Danni felt fatigue more often than before. Exposure to radiation started to take its toll too. Danni found it difficult to swallow bread.

I found myself constantly in a mood of guilt since radiotherapy began 10 days ago. I felt I had not spent enough quality time with her.

It started to feel like we were at the plateau of a progress curve. Initial anxiety cooled down. Treatment, commuting to hospital, logistic and caring etc was more regular day to day things now.

As mentioned earlier, Danni’s treatment was scheduled to 9pm on weekdays. We had decided she would only go to hospital around treatment time and sleep there then went home next morning. I would stay at my mum's to do some work and go to join her later in the afternoons. Then evenings would be tight schedules of playing with Ryan, bathing and washing his laundry then accompanied Danni to hospital. Two hours later I would have to catch the last bus to leave.

Was I switched into auto-pilot mode?

For sure, Danni didn’t. I could feel her spirit swung low recently. She didn’t say much about it. Hearing a neighbouring patient had had to take additional radiation on new spot only by the end of her treatment also gave her some worries.

Radiologist wrote down her next appointment on an index card. 29 more slots to fill: the hard battle was only just begun.