Pro-Time Update

My blood clot time went down again to 1.72 (17 seconds to clot). So, in order to get the Coumadin to be therapeutic, gotta increase my daily dose from 4 mg per day to 5 mg on Mondays and Thursdays and 4 mg all the other days in the week.

Is this boring information? I think it is. Maybe it gives you, the reader, a sense of how much blood testing I have to do regularly.

Kathleen, my chemo nurse practicioner, tells me that as long as I have the chemo port in my arm, I will have the clot. No one has told me to get ready to have it taken out. I ran into a woman I met in my breast cancer support group - she finished her chemo one month ago and her port has already been removed. I am not sure how long I will have my port in. I hope I don't have it forever, but you never know. After all, I am stage IV cancer. I guess that gives me the highest probability that I will need the chemo port again at some point in my life. As it is now, Dr. Sherman says I will probably have to take Aredia, the bone strengthening drug, for the rest of my life. Aredia is administered via IV (intravenous) drip once a month, so we use the chemo port for that.