PET Scan Tomorrow (Sunday)

Hi everyone! I just wanted to ask for prayer for my immune system and for my PET scan, which is now happening tomorrow (Sunday) at about 12pm.

As you may have heard, I went to see my doctor on Friday because of a sudden fever spike during the night. My temp was back to normal by the time I went to my appointment, but they found that my white blood cell counts were low and my neutrophils were, well, basically gone. (Standard range for me is 2200-6700 neutrophils per unit liter; I had 10. This is actually the lowest my counts have been since I started treatment in October.)

The doctors think the low counts are just a delayed side effect from the chemo. Apparently "Late Onset Neutropenia" is a relatively uncommon side effect of rituximab, one of my chemo drugs. Depending on the study, it occurs in between 5-27% of lymphoma patients treated with rituximab.

So, I'm back at the hospital waiting for my counts to go up. They're giving me Neupogen (the daily version of Neulasta) to help my body push out some more white blood cells. Thankfully, they've run a number of tests and haven't found any specific viruses or bacteria, but they're keeping me on a general antibiotic while my counts are so low.

In addition, the doctors decided to schedule me for a PET scan while I'm here, rather than having me come back on Thursday. I don't get the sense that there are any specific concerns that are leading them to expedite the PET scan, but we're still a bit nervous about the results of scan itself.

We won't have results from the scan until we meet with my oncologist, which may still be on Friday, March 9th. Or, if I'm still in the hospital on Monday she may come by and discuss the results then. Whatever the case, we'll be sure to keep you updated.

For now, please pray that the scan would bring nothing but good news and that cancer will be gone for good!