Got to the hospital on Friday, and first out of the box was my Rituxin. I again had rigors (chills and shakes/ muscle spasms), and although they were bad, they were not as bad as the first time because I had the wherewithal to hit the clamp on my tubing to stop the Rituxin just as I entered rigors. It took me another few minutes to manage to hit the nurse call button. The nurse was quick to follow protocol, and within about 45 minutes, I had come down from the reaction. They slowed the drip even more, and I had continuous low-grade fever and muscle cramps for the rest of the session. Because they slowed down the drip the Rituxin, which usually takes 4 hrs, took 12 hours. The rest of the night was wracking cough and low-grade fever. Ugh. The Rituxin stopped at 4am, and by 5 I was feeling a lot better.
The bad thing about the reaction to the Rituxin (besides the actual unpleasantness) is that the severity of the reaction often correlates strongly to the amount of cancerous material, which means that there is a good chance that my spleen is still harboring quite a bit of the baddies. We will find out for sure on Friday, when I go in for a PET scan specifically to check. There was some hope that because my other blood work was looking good, my spleen might simply be still large because it was amazingly huge and spleens take a while to shrink. If that is the case then I would just have one more round before I go to Dartmouth for my stem cell transplants. However, if it is harboring cancerous material, then I will have at least 3 more rounds, if not 5. Que sera, sera.
The day was really nice though, I had an hour unhooked from the tubes, and managed to get in a hot shower and a nice although limited walk. I had a visit with my friend Steve, who lives in Brunswick. He brought me some seafood chowder which was amazingly delicious, and we talked about tricks for setting up a woodshop. My brother and sister-in-law and their two children showed up, along with my mom. It was nice to see them. And my friend Carolyn, who is going through her own chemotherapy was able to make it up for a while, as well as bring me custard and breakfast sandwiches. I don't know how she manages to do it. She is really amazing. It was great to see everyone, and I had pretty good energy all day.
The bad thing about the reaction to the Rituxin (besides the actual unpleasantness) is that the severity of the reaction often correlates strongly to the amount of cancerous material, which means that there is a good chance that my spleen is still harboring quite a bit of the baddies. We will find out for sure on Friday, when I go in for a PET scan specifically to check. There was some hope that because my other blood work was looking good, my spleen might simply be still large because it was amazingly huge and spleens take a while to shrink. If that is the case then I would just have one more round before I go to Dartmouth for my stem cell transplants. However, if it is harboring cancerous material, then I will have at least 3 more rounds, if not 5. Que sera, sera.
The day was really nice though, I had an hour unhooked from the tubes, and managed to get in a hot shower and a nice although limited walk. I had a visit with my friend Steve, who lives in Brunswick. He brought me some seafood chowder which was amazingly delicious, and we talked about tricks for setting up a woodshop. My brother and sister-in-law and their two children showed up, along with my mom. It was nice to see them. And my friend Carolyn, who is going through her own chemotherapy was able to make it up for a while, as well as bring me custard and breakfast sandwiches. I don't know how she manages to do it. She is really amazing. It was great to see everyone, and I had pretty good energy all day.
Hi Leif, I was thinking about you today and wondering how things were going. Hang in there, sending hugs and thoughts of shrinking spleen...hope everything goes well this week :-)
ReplyDeleteHeya Leif,
ReplyDeleteMy comment on your prior post vanished into thin air. Basically, it said that I've been thinking of you loads: on Friday (Cat's b-day) knowing you were heading down to Brunswick; on Sat b/c Cat and I thought we might come visit; and on Sun b/c we though we might visit again. Sadly none of our hoped for visits panned out b/c I've been down with a pretty bad headache since Friday afternoon (Cat said that it ruined her birthday)--so all travel plans cancelled. Today the head is much better (though not perfect). We're going to try to do some birthday "make up" this week.
I also was thinking of you before Friday because I was thinking about food for you. Sadly, I didn't pull it together to try to get you some food. It wouldn't have been anywhere near as awesome as what some of your friends have brought, but it still might beat hospital food. Maybe I can make it up to you on a future round (which hopefully there won't be for your sake, but if there is...).
All for now--I told Cat I wouldn't be too long on the computer--
Hope all is going well this time around and that you will be heading back to Brooks within the next few hours. It's a beautiful day for a drive home. -- Wendy
ReplyDelete