Day 15 of maintenance cycle 7

The visit to the BMT clinic today lasted from 8:25 (8;30 AM appointment but there was no traffic) to 9:20. I was taken into the Infusion room immediately after I was weighed and the rest of the vitals were taken there and almost at once Malene installed a line in my port and we didn't have to wait long for results on the five tubes of blood that she drew. She already had the Velcade and only had to wait for the report from the lab before administering it. She asked me about the wound inflicted on me by a goofy elevator passenger on my visit June 24 that Jill had dressed. I had a painful experience several days ago lasting nearly 90 minutes as I removed the bandage. It seemed that the fleshy part of the wound where no skin remained had started to grow into the no-stick pad that Jill had used and I had to treat it with hydrogen peroxide and warm water many times before it would come off and even then it was painful. The wound is an inch and a quarter long with about a half inch of that scab and the rest dry-looking skin. Believe me I am going to watch the elevator doors very carefully hereafter. This being day 15 means that I started 4 days of dexamethasone this morning and I take 500mg of cyclophosphamide this evening and probably will have a difficult time sleeping tonight. The next 3 days won't be much better.


The new drug that Dr. Hull prescribed for Emma requires careful monitoring of her blood and she had to go in to the Murray clinic last Monday to have blood drawn. She thought it was a follow-up appointment with the doctor, but she would not have seen him had she not had a few questions that only he could answer. The nurse who tried to draw her blood could not find a vein in either arm and finally had to give up and call in a more experienced nurse for the job. She was almost as inept the first time she had to draw blood and left Emma with an ugly bruise. Dr. Hull's office called her last Thursday to tell her the bloodwork looked good, but that the doctor wanted her to start taking 2 of the 500mg new pills each morning and then one at night. This bothered her because of the side effects and she decided that she would start with one and a half pills in the morning for a little while. Malene asked me this morning about Emma's condition and when I told her about the Cellcept (new drug) she said that it is not an anti-biotic and that it works on the immune system and can affect the immune system to the extent that Emma could be quite suseptible to infections and that is why her blood needs to be monitored frequently, and she needs to be very careful about wounds that could become infected or things like colds. When I got home (after lunch, actually) Emma told me that she had taken 2 of the 500mg pills this morning and she felt OK. Her next appointment with Dr. Hull isn't until July 26 so I guess the positive result on the last bloodwork is encouraging.