2016 Chemo Round 1, Day 1

Today was the first day of two which will be repeated over 4 – 28 day cycles in the coming months. In a word, today was long (6.5 hours), but I successfully tolerated my drugs, Rituxan and Treanda.

Despite pre treatment cocktails consisting of Zofran, Benedryl, and Decadron, I did experience a few side effects (mild nausea, hot flashes) but these were easily controlled. This round was filled with a number of firsts. For starters, I never received chemo via a port inserted in my chest. This port was just inserted last Friday.  Also the treatment drug Treanda is new to me. Both of these things made me a little anxious about today so I’m ecstatic that it went as well as it did.  My doc called this combination, “the big guns” and we loaded them with the maximum dosage amount. We’re going full bore on this.

The other first that we experienced was a severe thunderstorm and power outage. Yes, the chemo suite lost power. No worries, the staff made the necessary adjustments and we forged on.

It’s hard to explain this, but I can actually feel the treatment drugs working as I write this. There is a war being waged in my body at this moment and I have a ringside seat. I can feel it in the problem areas where lymph nodes are extremely enlarged. The cool thing is, the drugs are winning the war.

So I receive another round of  Treanda tomorrow, then a booster shot on Wednesday. Then off for 28 days sans a check in with my doc next Monday.

I will still need to watch out for side effects throughout this process, and eventually we will reach a point where my white count, red count, and platelets are too depleted to treat any longer. And that’s when we will know we are done. That will likely and hopefully take 4 cycles.

Today was a great day. Until next time. And thanks for your support. I will continue to provide brief updates here out of respect for your social media news feeds. If you are interested in following my progress, check in here.