Schedule forward

We arrived at the Huntsman Hospital just before 9:30 yesterday morning for an appointment with Dr. Tricot at 10:00 and much to our surprise he put in an appearance shortly after the nurses had finished taking my vital signs and reviewed my medication list. He asked numerous questions and answered the few that I had and then outlined the procedures for the next several days. I go in Friday morning at 9:00 for an infusion of melphalan and a shot of velcade, but the infusion will be preceeded by a 30 minute saline drip and then followed by another saline drip after the melphalan, which may take an hour or more (anyway the entire process may take 3 to 4 hours). The nurses tell me that I will be given a bag of ice to chew on during the infusion and that I will want to pack my cheeks with ice to shrink the capillaries in the mouth so that the melphalan won't try to kill those tiny blood vessels. Apparently melphalan is a bad actor.

Dr. Tricot said that I will take a thalidomide pill each evening at bedtime starting Friday and will continue for quite sometime. Elaine said that I will use 18 of the 28 pills in the first (?) package of thalidomide that I had to buy during this round of treatment and she said that there will be a need for future purchases (fortunately at 5% of cost, but that is a lot of money). Saturday and Sunday I will just take the thalidomide along with dexamethasone and then Monday go back for another infusion of melphalan. On Tueday they will re-implant my stem cells. Then we just wait for engraftment and the restoration of my immune system. And I guess I will contune to take the thalidomide each evening.

We are going to move into the University of Utah Guest House this afternoon. It is only a 2-minute drive from the Huntsman Hospital and we both feel a little safer to be that close in case anything happens that requires immediate access to the hospital. We will have an ordinary hotel room with a king-size bed (instead of the 2 queens that I originally requested) and very limited cooking capability. A small refrigerator, a small microwave and a coffee maker, which is of little use because I am supposed to avoid caffeine, but a hot breakfast will be served every morning. Emma may have to go to the grocery store every day because of the small size of the fridge.