07/04/08 – Happy 4th of July

I am so happy that this week is over. After 5 days of treatment, I am spent. I can say that the treatment went well and other than having a slight cough, gaining about 6 lbs, being a little irritable, suffering from slight heartburn, having no taste buds, having slight vision problems, and a little trouble sleeping, I am doing quite well. All of these side effects are temporary (or so I am told), and should disappear within a couple of days. I am still a little short on energy, but I am hoping that too shall return quickly.

The treatment went as expected and there were no complications or false starts. They were able to infuse the Rituxan at the full dose rate on days 3 and 4. This is probably because they gave me such a small dose on the first day, a larger dose the second day and the full doses on days 3 and 4. The Rituxan infusion probably took 3 ½ hours on those days; compared to the 11 ½ hours it took the first time I had it in October. Quite a difference.

On Thursday I did have an additional therapy added to help protect me from the possibility of infection. All of this treatment is not only treating the CLL and helping with the AIHA (anemia), but it also lowers my resistance to infection. To counter this, I am on 3 oral antibiotic prescription drugs, and on Thursday I had a nebulizer infusion of Pentamidine, which is a antibiotic that can be inhaled. On Friday I also got my bi-weekly dose of IVIG once again to help with infection and to help control the AIHA.

I will get a blood test next week just to make sure all the numbers are going in the right direction, but no one at La Jolla is very concerned about my numbers being out of whack. They seem EXTREMELY confident that this is going to have great results for me. I am praying that they are correct, but it is still hard not to worry about it.

It has been decided that I will now go on a monthly IVIG because they feel that the AIHA will now be under control. This means one less long day down in La Jolla every two weeks. My next visit to La Jolla is on July 15^th and will be just a blood test and a visit to Dr. Kipps. All indications are that this will be a short and sweet visit, and he will send me on my merry way. The next treatment will be the week of July 28^th- Aug 1^st, and should be the same treatment that I received this week. The last treatment will be August 25^th – Aug 29^th, and then I should be done with this go round.

All for now,

Terry