Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Stats....

I thought I would put together a 'numbers' summary of all the drugs, drug costs, tests, time and blog/internet. If you know me well, you know I like to count - hahaha.Check it out:

Drugs:

  • Rituxan - 10,500Mg - and lots more coming!
  • Prednisone - 10 pills @ 50Mg each X 6 sessions = 3000Mg
  • Cyclophosphamide - 750Mg per dose for 6 doses = 4500Mg
  • Doxorubicin - 300Mg - this was given for 6 cycles at 50Mg each. The therapy limiting dose for this drug is around 500Mg - at which point the risk of congestive heart failure increases. This is one of the major reasons for only doing 6 cycles.
  • Vincristine - 10Mg - nasty drug. The first 4 cycles was 2Mg and the last 2 were 1mg each. The major difference I noticed was the tingly feeling in my fingers.
  • Cytosar - 500Mg given in 100mg doses - this drug is given via Lumbar Puncture
  • Mystery Drug - given via lumbar puncture once - I do know that the following drug was taken in addition to it...
  • Leucovorin - 5Mg - These were taken in pill form every 6 hours 4 times starting 24 hours after my 5th lumbar puncture to counteract the drug that was injected. Very odd eh?
  • Ativan - This is a fairly common drug for anxiety - but it is also good for nausea. I tried to take as few of these as I could. Dr. Hamm was reluctant even giving it to me because of its addictive nature...
  • Emend - excellent drug - I started taking this during my 2 cycle and I think it made a huge difference. Mainly for nausea. I took one in the morning on the day of my chemo and then one that night and the next night.
  • Stematil - as needed for nausea.
  • Zofran - taken the day of chemo and the next two nights for nausea.
  • Pariet - to protect my stomach from all the drugs.
  • Kytril - This was replaced by the Emend after the first week.
  • Benadryl - given during every chemo cycle to prevent reactions to the rituxan (and it really relaxed me and made me tired during chemo)
  • Gravol - I took a lot of this...to help with the nausea and to help me sleep. Generally speaking, I took it every day for 10-20 days post chemo. A few nights I took 2 - but that really knocked me out and I was very groggy in the morning.
  • Extra Strength Tylenol - I normally don't get headaches...but I got a lot of them during this.
  • Neupogen -1.6Mg X 30 shots - My second chemo cycle I took 1 shot daily for 10 days ... the 3rd - 6th I took 1 shot every other day for 10 days.

Drug Costs (all are estimates):

Estimated Costs of the over the counter drugs is $12,000. This does not include the Chemo Drugs Rituxan, Cyclo, Doxo or Vincristine...

  • Rituxan costs around $4,000 per dose, I have received 8 so far and will get 8 more = $64,000. I have read that the cost is between $3,000 and $8,000 per 'treatment'.
  • Vincristine is about $40/Mg - I had a total of 10Mg = $400.
  • Doxorubicin costs about $100 per 50Mg - for a total of $600.
  • Cyclophosphamide - 4,500Mg @ about $100 per 50Mg for a total cost of $9,000.

Total: $95,000

Tests:


3 - CT Scans
2 - X-Rays
1 - PET scan
2 - MUGA Scan
1 - Bone Marrow Aspiration
6 - Cerebral Spinal Fluid (lumbar puncture/intra-thecal)

Time:

  • 161 Days - from diagnosis to the day I was told "Remission" - That might be a record?

Blog:

  • 110 Blog Posts
  • 43 Blog Followers
  • 83 Blog Subscribers
  • 23,684 Page Views
  • 2,228 Number of Unique Visitors to the blog
  • 34 Number of Countries Represented
  • 425 Number of Cities (top 10 cities: 2951-Windsor; 1343 Toronto; 645 Cobourg; 294 Ottawa; 247 London; 244 Whitby; 194 Vancouver; 188 Kitchener; 156 Etobicoke; 140 Burlington)

Fundraising:

  • 140 - Shirts Sold
  • $3,974.52 - Money raised from Shirt Sales
  • $4025.00 - Additional Money Donated
  • $8,074.52 - Total Money Donated to the Windsor Regional Cancer Centre for use in the new Patient Resource Rooms

Ciao

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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yes ....
i know you like to count.....
your
mother