{"id":31,"date":"2008-07-23T11:40:45","date_gmt":"2008-07-23T15:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.larrygauthier.com\/?p=31"},"modified":"2008-07-26T07:01:15","modified_gmt":"2008-07-26T11:01:15","slug":"chemo-maintenance-end-of-cycle-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.larrygauthier.com\/?p=31","title":{"rendered":"Chemo maintenance – end of cycle 11"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chemo maintenance \u2013 end of cycle 11<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This week marked the end of my eleventh three-week cycle of medication following my bone marrow transplant. I am still feeling great and living a very-near normal lifestyle with only a few restrictions. In June Irene and I flew out to San Diego to attend my retirement party (which the Burton Group\u00a0 conveniently co-located with its annual Catalyst conference). This was my first post-transplant experiment with a long flight, and although my feet bothered me a bit after sitting in an airplane for 5 hours, everything else was ok. I did not catch any bugs from the trip\u2026 although I was careful and wore a surgical mask on the plane.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Now that Irene and I are retired we\u2019re spending a nice summer around the house. There are still a few seasonal restrictions due to my immune deficiencies: can\u2019t cut the grass, can\u2019t work in the yard or garden, and can\u2019t swim in the lake. These restrictions will disappear after I receive inoculations this October\/ December\/ February and my immune system is back to full strength. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

NEWS FROM MY CLINIC VISIT<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Irene and I met with Tara, the Oncology PA, this morning at UofM (Dr. J is on vacation). Once again, my health seems to be proceeding as expected, there are no significant changes since my April checkup, and I am just coasting-along in maintenance mode.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

MEDICATION CHANGES<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

My blood work during this 3 month cycle shows a reaction to long-term exposure to Revlimid, my chemotherapy drug. My white cell and ANC counts (antibody\/immunity indicators) began dropping about 6 weeks ago. This disorder, called \u201cneutropenia\u201d is not unexpected of Revlimid patients and not a cause of major concern. My lab work (blood tests) interval was shortened from monthly to weekly \u2013 allowing the clinic folks to monitor me more closely. To counteract the neutropenia Dr. J prescribed Neupogen, which I self-inject whenever the clinic calls and tells me I need a booster shot. {Self-injection may sound awful, but it is trivial compared to some of the other procedures I\u2019ve encountered. ;- } <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

SIDE EFFECTS<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Neuropathy \u2013 This feeling of swollen feet continues to diminish, to the point now where it is hardly noticeable. In August I am going to experiment by discontinuing all of the medications (a large list of pills for this side-effect alone) that I take for neuropathy and see if those are still making any difference (the drugs are really more of a preventative measure than side effect treatment).\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Vision \u2013 As Dr. J. had expected, discontinuing the Dexamathasone steroid back in April reversed the decline in vision\u00a0that I was noticing. My eyesight now (as far as I can tell, I need to get to an optometrist and get things checked out) is back to its pre-chemotherapy 2006 state. [see the April 30th<\/sup> blog posting for background on this]<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

NEXT STEPS<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For the time being, I have lab\/blood work scheduled every week until we can better predict the interaction of neutropenia with my Neupogen injections. Perhaps the interval will stretch to bi-weekly when we see a predictable pattern. \u00a0<\/span>Sprinkled in the schedule every 6 -8 weeks are an infusion of bone strengthening drugs (pentamidine) and an anti-pneumonia respiratory treatment (pamidronate). I\u2019ll visit with Dr. J and his PA Tara in another 3 months. So unless there are some dramatic changes [which I think are unlikely] my next blog posting won\u2019t be until late October.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the latest news from Hamburg.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

-larry<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chemo maintenance \u2013 end of cycle 11 \u00a0 This week marked the end of my eleventh three-week cycle of medication following my bone marrow transplant. I am still feeling great and living a very-near normal lifestyle with only a few restrictions. In June Irene and I flew out to San Diego to attend my retirement […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.larrygauthier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.larrygauthier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.larrygauthier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.larrygauthier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.larrygauthier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/blog.larrygauthier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43,"href":"http:\/\/blog.larrygauthier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions\/43"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.larrygauthier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.larrygauthier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.larrygauthier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}