Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Tomorrow is #5 of 6

Ya....5 of 6....

Dr. Hamm informed us today that I would only be doing 6 CHOP-R's. There isn't any real reason why 6 instead of 8, but I guess that Dr. Hamm just decided that it would be 6. As I have stated in the past, the literature does not show that either one is better, and this was reaffirmed by Dr. Hamm. The one thing that she did say is that the Cyclo, at 450cc does dramatically increase risk of Heart Failure, and after 6 cycles I'll be at 300cc's...so, keeping away from 450 is a good thing (8 cycles would put me at 400).

I was a little shocked by this and I don't know how I feel about it...I'll get into that later. For now, I have the understanding that after my 6th session I will do 2 more sessions of Rituxan at 3 weeks apart. I also think that I will be doing the 5 spinal injections and 2 years of maintenance Rituxan. I'll have to confirm all this.

She did take a look at my CT scan and said that it looked clear. However, I did have some chest pain sunday and monday, so she will wait to see what the radiologist report says. She is slightly concerned about a blood clot, which are somewhat common for lymphoma patients...yuck.

I also got my MUGA results, and am slightly confused...to set the stage - anything above 50% is normal. So, my last MUGA result was 74% (I wanted 100% but I guess 74 is good). This test result was 59%, but used proper positioning...So, we can't compare the results. Either way, I guess I have to accept that both results are considered to be >50%.

My blood counts are good enough for Chemo tomorrow, and are actually more normal than all my past pre-chemo tests.

Dr. Hamm also informed us that London is now doing PET scans, so this is where I will get mine done.

I guess I should be happy that I am doing 6 instead of 8 chemo sessions...I just can't be happy about it. I think I would rather do the 8 to be sure that it gets the crap kicked out of it, not just slapped around. I'll have to trust hammy on this one...but I need a bit more time to get my head around it.

I hope you have your shirts on!

Ciao.

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