A taste of days to come

I was just starting to process the news of the cancellation of chemo 12, as I knew that the spontaneous elation we felt was to be short lived, and had just begun to plan days to come by visiting the Tibetan doctor when Ranjan's blood counts results landed on me. They had never been so low! I was hoping for the usual comforting and ever optimistic : don't worry from Doctor D but she looked at the figures and said nothing for a while, her brows frowning. She then looked up and stated: the WBC counts are alarming. They read 1.5. I have never see Doctor D react this way in the long years I have been visiting her. I jumped out of my skin and started babbling incoherently, totally unlike me! She told me to keep Ranjan away from people and any source of infection and get the counts done again after a week. Normally we gave Ranjan booster shots pre chemo, but this time his oncologist had said to wait and watch.

I was in panic mode. Doctor Paul, my reassuring GP, is away till Monday! I did not know what to do. I SMSd Doctor Vora several times. No answer. Normally he does respond asap. I waited for some time and then tried again. I cannot begin to tell you the state I was in. One was a the start line again and had no precedent to go on. I realised that this was a situation I would find myself in the days to come. The famous new normal was to be far more challenging than I had imagined. I realised I had to build a second defence line with alternate doctors that I could call should none of the front line was available. I was wondering how to go about it when my phone buzzed and I got a reply from Doctor Vora. I was to give Ranjan the booster shots and then get another count done a week later. The PET scan was also to be postponed. What a relief.

This incident gave me a glimpse of the days to come. Till Ranjan's counts are not 'normal' I guess there will be many such challenges. What I need to do now is find out all I can about ways to boost the bone marrow as healing and keeping cancer at bay depends on its functioning properly.