Tuesday morning, we show up at Dr. Te's office at 9:00 am for my appointment and the first treatment. They take us back to exam room 3 and one of his nurses did a teaching class to us on what the medicines would be and what side effects we should expect, that took an hour or so and then after a while Dr. Te comes in to talk with us. At first we are still under the impression that the with him as an out patient would not be too much longer than 6 weeks and then we would move to Salt Lake for the final treatments at LDS to complete the transplant protocols. Dr. Te answered all the questions we had for him at that time, and in the course of answering, we got a more realistic view on what the schedule would be for the majority of the summer. First the chemo treatments would consist of 3 - 4 elements each visit. 1) they will start the IV with nausea and side effects treatment that takes about 25 minutes +/-, then 2) they push the Velcade a low dose Chemo drug that is suspended in only about 30 ccs of liquid, then to run it through my system, 3) they push a small bag of saline solution through my veins. This process takes about an hour to complete. The procedure will happen twice a week for two weeks and then I get a week off, so treatments are Day 1 (Tuesday), Day 4 (Friday) , Day 8 (Tuesday), Day 11 (Friday) and then begin again on Day 22 (Tuesday) that actually becomes Day 1 for the next treatment cycle, today is Day 1 - Round 1, May 18th is scheduled to be Day 1 - Round 2. Also once every 4 weeks I am suppose to get a bone treatment drug called Arida (I think), for now that is scheduled for this Friday 4/30.
He started talking about the longer course of treatment, that is when we brought up our scheduling issues for late summer, namely Amanda and Ryan and their day to be married on August 14th. It was decided that treatments would last until then or past and then we would be transferred to the care of LDS. We were relieved and happy. He also said he believed I would probably have hair still at that time - which is the least of my worries. After talking with him for quite a while and getting most of our answers, he led us down the hall to the treatment room.
The treatment room, imagine what you might think it would look like - OK then forget that and think of a fairly large room, that has 10-12 large black leather recliners jammed into a room lining the walls with people sitting in them attached to IV pump machines. Really rather cozy, and absolutely no privacy, so you share everything with everyone, which seems to work very well for the circumstance. They started my IV - after finding a spot that wasn't bruised already from previous hospital stays. I got the treatment, we left and ran a couple of errands, got some lunch and went back to Coral Canyon where we both were very grateful once again to Bruce and Cara for the "chair-ity) of the recliners they brought there as we took naps to un-wind and relax.
Mom and Dad came by during the afternoon to see how we were doing, then Bill and Ruth Ann brought us dinner and cooked at our house, it was very good. Bruce and Cara ended up staying Tuesday night too. We ended up staying the night and got up the next morning 4/28 to go back to Vegas, I got to work around 10:00 am and at that point, I didn't think there were really any side effects evident.
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