My 11th treatment this week – a final bag of Melphalan with an electrolyte chaser. Tomorrow is a rest day, then I get my stem cells back on Monday. After that it will be a daily rebuilding process while avoiding infections and opportunistic germs.
The chemo effects will reach their nadir in 10-14 days. That’s also [...]
Posts Tagged as ‘Chemotherapy’
June 13, 2009
Last Day of Chemo
June 8, 2009
Chez Chemo: Memo for the Week
Drinks & Appetizers:
Saline Solution (shaken, not stirred)
Scope Anti-nausea Patch
Dexamethasone
Main Courses:
Carmustine
Cytarabine (ARA,C)
Etoposide (VP-16)
Melphalan
Side (effect) Dishes:
Compazine – 40 mg daily
Kytril – 2 mg daily
Lansoprazole – 30 mg daily
Lorazepam – 4 mg daily
Temazepam – 30 mg daily
Dessert (next week):
Acyclovir – 1,600 mg daily
Diflucan – 800 mg daily
Levaquin – 500 mg daily
May 20, 2009
Apheresis for Dummies
What I had last weekend is known as mobilization chemotherapy, even though it de-mobilized me. It’s done to increase the number of stem cells in the peripheral blood. I return to Denver on Friday and as soon as my counts are up, I will begin stem cell collection, called apheresis.
Apheresis can take several days. I’ll [...]
May 17, 2009
Great To Be Alive!
it’s great to be alive on a sunny Sunday, especially after what happened to me on Friday and Saturday. The RMCC is a world-class facility with top notch professionals; and don’t even get me started on their kick-ass pharmaceuticals.
Despite these advantages, this “mobilization” chemo was my worst yet as far a side effects. At [...]
May 15, 2009
9th Round
I’m at the Rocky Mountain Cancer Center (RMCC) in downtown Denver for my 9th round of chemo starring Cytoxan (Cyclophosphamide) and Etoposide (VP-16). I’ve had them both before. The former is an alkylating agent derived from mustard gas and the latter is a topoisomerase inhibitor.
This is a three-day bout to mobilize my stem cells for [...]
May 10, 2009
SCT 101
SCT stands for Stem Cell Transplant, which is what I will be getting in a few days. Stem cell transplants are done to treat blood diseases affecting the marrow such as lymphoma, leukemia and multiple myeloma. When the cells come from the patient it’s called an autologous transplant; when they come from a donor it’s [...]
April 20, 2009
Drugged Out
Home today and slooowly recovering. It’s a wonder I can sit up, much less stand. I don’t know how to describe what chemo feels like. Instead I’ll list its causes and let you imagine the effects.
Over the last eight months I have been repeatedly injected with, or ingested, a pharmacopeia from A to Z; either [...]
March 12, 2009
It’s Back!
Actually the cancer never left; it was just suppressed by the R CHOP chemo. The quick return indicates what is called “refractory” disease rather than relapse, which is a return after remission.
Turns out this makes me typical. “While overall survival rates of adults with Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma (DLBCL) have improved since the advent of [...]
