Webster defines uneventful as 'marked by no noteworthy or untoward incidents', and this is what today was. (I know some of you may have to look up untoward, but that will increase your vocabulary knowledge.) My appointment was at 11, but with no traffic we got down there about 10 because we didn't know if I had to have labs drawn before I went into the Infusion center. Well, it turned out that they were going to draw labs when I got in the Infusion center, so that is what they did. But, because of that they couldn't start the infusion until after they got the results, so that took a while, until 1:30pm. At first this was pretty irritating, but then I remembered the last time I got Rituxan they were working off of a 10 day old lab test, and bottom line, I shouldn't have gotten Rituxan when I did. So we waited for the labs results and when they came back they were all good. Hemoglobin still holding at 12.5 and my white count is down to 45,000, which is the lowest it has been on this go round.
First they tried to find a good vein, and three pokes later I had one IV and two bandages on blown veins (par for the course). They started with Cimitedine (for upset stomachs, like Pepcid, except much stronger), Then I got my HDMP high dose steroid, Solumedrol, once again a very high dose. As close as we can determine, about 6 times stronger than my highest prednisone dose. So after two hours of all that, they could then start on the Rituxan. This was given at a rate of 30 ml / hour over 4 hours. After all of these drugs I had NO reaction at all to any of it. I did get some Benadryl IV and that did make me a little sleepy, but that was it. Remember that they start the Rituxan very slowly on the first day and only give a partial dose. Tomorrow I will get the remainder of the dose (770 ml). They will start it slowly and gradually increase the dose until I react or they reach the maximum infusion rate. They say they can infuse it at a rate of 400 ml per hour on some patients, but I don't really care how fast they infuse it as long as I don't have a reaction. On Wednesday and Thursday I will get the full dose (890 ml), and on all days (including Friday) I will get the Solumedrol. On Friday I will also get my bi-weekly IVIG, but no Rituxan.
They say I may be a little irritable and may have trouble sleeping, but I have drugs for the sleeping part. The irritability part everyone will have to live with. We decided to come home tonight because we don't have to be down there until 10am tomorrow. The next 3 days we have to be there earlier, so we are playing that by ear right now.
We talked quite a while to my case manager about the next two courses of this treatment and what happens after that, but I won't get into any of that right now.
All in all a good day. Thanks to everyone for their kind words and prayers. I know they are helping.
Terry
1 comment:
Have a safe and comfortable week. Love, Nancy
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