Yes, unfortunately I am now on lock down. I fully expected this to happen and I was warned. My first chemo treatment went well but midway through the first month I started feeling tired and achy. I rebounded afterward and was able to make it through my second chemo treatment but, soon after, I found myself feeling more tired and achy.

My last blood test confirmed my white blood cell count is low which means I probably will not have my third chemo treatment until my white blood cells rebound. I will have to take another blood test to assess where I am and if they have not rebounded I will not be in the chemo chair.

The low white blood count means I am fly paper for germs. As a result, I cannot go out around people and I have to be extremely careful with what I do and what I eat. Specifically, I love making fresh salads and juicing vegies but I cannot do anything raw right now.

Doing some research, I discovered there are foods out there that will help your immune system and I never figured yogurt to be one of them. I stumbled upon a site over at iVillage and found an article entitled “Low white blood count & diet“. In the article, the author states:

Give your child’s immune system a boost by including lots of yogurt that contains live active cultures of Lactobacillus Bulgaricus and Strepococcus thermophilus. Some other specific foods to include are garlic, foods high in zinc such as oysters, pot roast, dark meat turkey and pumpkin and squash seeds (or make sure her multi vitamin contains zinc), and shitake mushrooms. These mushrooms may not be to appealing to your daughter, so try pureeing them to add to spaghetti sauce, or chop them fine and add to a meatloaf. Other immune boosting foods are fruits and vegetables. They may not increase her white cell count, but they will make the white cells she has stronger.

I will follow the advice here and will decrease the fats and keep eating the turkey and yogurt.  I cannot deal with mushrooms so that is definitely out.

Another useful site I found listed the following precautions when your white blood count decreases:

Even your food selection and preparation plays an important role when your immune system is compromised. You will want to make sure you:

• Don’t eat raw or undercooked foods like eggs, poultry, meat, seafood, or any unpasteurized dairy products. (Remember that some hollandaise sauces, Caesar dressings, or mayonnaise may contain raw eggs – so they should be avoided!)
• Be sure to wash produce thoroughly before you eat it.
• You will want to be particularly careful about cross contaminating your food. Take special care to make sure that uncooked meats do not come into contact with other foods you are going to be eating. Your hands, cutting boards, counters, knives, and other utensils need to be washed thoroughly after contact with uncooked foods. If someone else is preparing your meals, make sure they follow these precautions as well.
• Don’t share food, drinking glasses, or eating utensils with anyone else.

Thankfully, I chose not to confirm any plans for this weekend and next. There is so much happening next weekend I could not decide what I wanted to do. Well, instead of fretting over which event I will attend the answer is an easy one, none of them. I do regret I will not make it to the Lupus Walk.  Maybe next year.