Because that is what Zoë's tumor did after the 1/2 round of chemo! BooYah!
So all of Zoë's doctors met this afternoon, and discussed the what to do next part of her treatment. Here is the brief version (since I got less than 5 hours of sleep last night).
Zoë will have both nephrostomy tubes remain until after surgery. The left one which is now clamped will probably be un-clamped during the next round of chemo to protect the left kidney and bladder from the affects of the chemo. She will have the next round of chemo between tomorrow and Friday depending on how her labs and blood counts look. The surgeon is booking a date for her surgery three weeks out from the end of this week! If they don't feel she is ready by then the date could change. Since it is hard to get time in the busy operating room it is a good idea to book now, and reschedule later if need be.
The surgery will be very rough on Zoë. I already assumed that she would probably end up in the ICU (and quite frankly even if she is a rock star with the surgery I would want her in the ICU for the intense one on one care they can provide). The doctor said that her recovery could take up to two weeks or more, depending on how well she does.
Things we still don't know after this MRI:
Where the tumor is originating from.
If the right ureter is irreparably damaged by the tumor.
New definition:
The doctors are now rounding with me a bit more, and in doing so I get to hear many wonderful scientific terms. So here is a new one when discussing the drop in Zoë's immunity. As you might imagine when charting her blood counts it creates a wave type graph, with the peaks being high immunity, and the valleys low immunity. What the doctors are looking for is the Nadir.
Nadir- the lowest point of the curve. The opposite of a zenith.
Since Zoë's blood counts can fluctuate while going up and down sometimes it is hard to tell if she is bouncing a wee bit up before dropping more, or if she had bottomed out and back on a rise. So as the chart forms with each blood test (taken every morning), the doctors are trying to see if she hit her nadir, and is on her way up again.
Right now it looks like she may have, but there was a bit of a dip this morning so that is why she was not given the chemo today, and it may wait until tomorrow or the day after.
So while I have my math geeks attention...riddle me this.
What is the ultimate tensile strength for a roll of toilet paper to allow for a person with an average pull rate to get the roll to revolve on an average dispenser with out getting a billion little pieces? I seriously think it should be a rule that toilet paper must be able to hold itself together while being pulled off of a roll.
Ok. Looking forward to falling asleep in the big blue chair bed.
This post is brought to you today by the power of math. Making complex things easy to understand with awesome charts and graphs.
Love and Hugs from CHB!