A Plan

I was a little bit upset this morning when I listened to my voicemail and a message that I received at around 4 pm yesterday said that I was supposed to show up and start chemo this morning.  I hadn't talked to my doctor about my treatment plan; he had left a message yesterday morning telling me he had a plan but not what it was.  He wanted me to call him back but I thought I would wait a day because I was busy getting ready for my husband's Christmas party for work and I had waited over a week for him to get back from vacation, so I figured he could wait a day.  Then when his nurse called me this morning, she said the doctor was so worried about me, he thought I was in the hospital or something....please!!! So I called the hospital I was supposed to report to and let them know that I was not coming this morning and that I needed to talk to my doctor because I didn't even know what was going on.

My doctor got in touch with me and apologized for the misunderstanding about the appointment and about the other doctor not taking me on as a patient.  He let me know that he was communicating with the doctor from UCLA who will handle the other part of my treatment and that they had come up with a plan.  Instead of repeating treatment with the ABVD chemo they are going to use gemcitabine and navelbine.  He said that this treatment should cause less damage to my heart than ABVD.  The treatment will be given once a week for three weeks and the fourth week is off.  It will take about 2 hours to receive the chemo.  I'm not sure how many cycles of this I am doing, but I will ask on Monday.  Sometime while this is going on, I will have to go to UCLA and have my stem cells harvested.  The second part of my chemo will be high dose and I will need the stem cells to help me recover. 

My doctor also let me know that my treatment will most likely leave me infertile; not the first part but the second.  So then there is the question on if we want to harvest and store eggs; if we can afford it....  Still a lot of things to think about.