Well, things are moving again for me treatment-wise. The oral surgeon (Dr. Tool as Barb and I affectionately call him) said Tuesday that while my wisdom tooth holes weren’t healing as fast as a typical patient, they’re on track for me with my loverly situation. That means we are a go for the new chemo. I got the call from the transplant coordinator today and took some notes.
Next Thursday (March 30th) I get admitted into the Yale Children’s Hospital. My coordinator says it’s because the facility is the nicest to put me in, but I highly suspect one of the infusion nurses wrote something in my chart. I’ll be getting four bags of ifosfamide, each one given over a 24 hour period, a bag of gemzar for a couple of hours each day, and one push of the navalbine in one day.
The best news of this? After this chemo, I get my stem cells harvested! Crazy thing to get excited about, but to me, this means we’re moving forward. Once I’m done, the Neupogen (like Neulasta but less evil) starts. I already can’t understand my notes at this point. Once I get admitted, the coordinator will bring down a calendar with all of the dates for things, since she’ll then be able to figure out the specific dates and such depending on what time this starts. The Neupogen can either be given to me by one of us, by them, or by Dr. D’s office. I think at one point she said something about getting 2-3 shots per day? In the ensuing time period, I’ll be getting my blood checked occasionally by them (Yale) as I will possibly need transfusions after this chemo.
For some reason I’ve written “middle of the week of the 11th” at this point – I think that’s when the cells will be harvested. the week after that will be another PET scan. That will determine if I finally get the BEAM. If that blasted tumor’s still misbehaving, I might go for another cycle of this stuff or a cycle of something completely different. Apparently the doc’s had a lot of success with this combo, so hopefully this will do it and I can finally get started on the SCT.
I think that’s all I have written down on my piece of paper. A lot of stuff still hazy in the future, but at least we have the next step.
PBS Kids go!