Ibrance (second impressions)

My cold seems to have finally gotten better. I suspect this is in part because my good husband went out and got me some good cold medicine which allowed me to finally get a good night's sleep.  And in part because eventually whatever I have for white blood cells seem to have finally gotten the upper hand in the 2-forward-1-back war I was waging against the head cold.  I'm almost afraid to speak too soon, but I think things are solidly in the right side of wellness, head-cold-wise.  Cancer wellness, not so much, but sometimes you have to just take what you can get.

With 16 days of serious nasty cold symptoms and time off of work--by far the longest cold I can ever remember having, but I am pleased to be able to say the exhaustion is finally much better.  I actually feel like myself again.

Which is the part that makes me nearly giddy: I've been taking Ibrance every day for 17 days and I feel like myself again.

The words don't really convey the magnitude properly.  The thing is, the way the timing worked out, the day after I took my first Ibrance pill I started feeling ill. And the more days I took Ibrance, the worse I felt.  So I was legitimately wondering there how much might be outside stuff and how much was just the way it was going to be on Ibrance.  I was thinking the future seemed most likely to be a collection of days of feeling meh at best, wondering if I really appreciated the better life before this treatment quite enough.

But now I feel much more normal, so that's really exciting.

Since I'm just past the halfway point in the 21 day on/7 day off Ibrance cycle (at least assuming my blood counts are decent enough to start the next cycle after those 7 days off), I just went in yesterday to have my blood drawn and see exactly how those blood cells are reacting to having their CDK 4/6 inhibited.  The counts are expected to be down, but the question is how much and whether we're getting into dangerous territory or not.

I've gotten back numbers for the metabolic profile (sodium, glucose, etc.) and those have taken a dive from where they were holding before Ibrance, but so far I seem to be in the low end of normal--in some cases just barely, but it still counts.  

I need to wait on lab results for those blood count numbers (white cells, platelets, etc), though.  I do have some issues/side effects, some of which do seem to be related to Ibrance messing with the blood cells.  Among other things, I suspect white blood cells (low to begin with) may be having problems with Ibrance, that 15 day head cold being exhibit A.  I also am wondering about low platelets, judging from my new found mostly chronic low level nosebleed (cute, right? are you jealous?).  But at least I'm feeling pretty good again, so it's hard for me to believe the counts could be that dangerously low if I feel this normal.

And, anecdotally at least, it seems like a lot of the Ibrance blood problems start to taper off after a few cycles on the drug, so things have the potential to get even more normal as time goes on.

The biggest question (Is my cancer continuing to grow?) is still going to be an open one for a few months while we let Ibrance and Letrozole (hopefully!) do their stuff.  But unlike last week, suddenly now the idea of continuing to generally live my life while taking Ibrance is beginning to feel really do-able again.  Which is good, because I'm hoping Ibrance with Letrozole will work for me, and continue working, and continue to be worth taking for a very long time.