Dr. Tricot's review of tests

Yesterday we arrived at the BMT clinic just before 10:30 as requested (Emma went with me on crutches) because Dr. Tricot likes to have patients come early. They took my vitals and then had us wait for an examination room to empty and be cleaned. After which we were taken to the room a little before 11:00--the time scheduled for the appointment--but Dr. Tricot didn't come in until 11:20 or so, which was plenty of time for Nancy to get to the hospital from her school.

Dr. Tricot studied lab sheets, made notes, and looked at his computer screen for a half hour or more before starting to speak to us. He had a range of questions for me as to my eating habits, gain-or-loss of weight, energy level, and several others. Then he said that the tests performed last Thursday had not shown as much decline as he had hoped, but he wasn't specific about what those declines were. He then dictated a letter into his recorder, which I will get a copy of and may then learn what the disappointing declines were. He said he was going to change my drug protocol because of the results and then took me off thalidomide and replaced it with a drug that I am to take on day 1 and day 15 of the next maintenance cycle, which started yesterday. This drug, cyclophosphamide, apparently is a stronger chemotherapy drug than thalidomide because it has a warning on the bottle, which I didn't notice until after I had counted out the pills last night, that it should only be handled with gloves. The pills are 50mg each and the dosage is 500mg so I have to take 10 pills at a time and the prescription was filled for only 20 pills. When I asked him about taking 10 pills at once he said that they are about the size of baby aspirin pills, but I can take them a few at a time as long as I take them all without stopping to do something else. He is wrong about the size they actually are quite a bit bigger than a regular aspirin and swallowing five of them at once takes some doing.

Dr. Tricot said he wants me to do 3 maintenance cycles with no gaps between them and then he will see me again after the third of these. He was emphatic about no gaps and said that if scheduling indicated that he should see me during the last cycle the infusion crew should not let that cause a gap in the maintenance cycle.

Emma was quite tired when we got home because she had done a lot of walking using the crutches. (And because of all the waiting we had done at the clinic.) I suggested that she might want a wheel chair, but she was adamant about needing the exercise she could get by using the crutches. On Thursday I had told a few of the nurses, in response to questions about why they had not seen my wife, about Emma's broken leg and all the crew knew about it yesterday and were curious about how it had happened and were pleased to see her. After the session with Dr. Tricot I went to the infusion room for a shot of Velcade, which wasn't ready and we had to wait for that, but they did have an unclaimed turkey sandwich , which I was given for lunch. Emma and Nancy went up to the 6th floor Bistro for lunch and came back for more waiting. After the Velcade shot I then had to wait at the pharmacy because, even though the prescriptions--2 new ones--had been called in, they weren't ready so we didn't get home until a little after 2:00.

My new maintenance cycle calls for BMT visits on Monday and Thursday every other week, which is a schedule I wanted, but it is going to be a Friday visit this week because of the holiday and it may be even more complicated because there was a notice at the pharmacy that they are going to be closed both Thursday and Friday. The Velcade and the Aredia (sp?)--a 2-hour infusion--that I am to be given on Friday have to come from the pharmacy and if they are closed there may not be any infusions on Friday.