Sunday, December 8, 2013

My Schedule

Barbara and I made yet another trip to DFCI for infusion #4 of Cycle 2 of my RVD treatment. Cycle 2 ends on Tuesday followed by a rest week. Again, thankfully, side effects so far have been minimal.

The worst part is having to make so many trips to Dana Farber (DFCI) in Boston. Each RVD cycle requires 4 trips into "town".

Not much more to say about this, so I thought I would go over the schedule which has now been pretty much laid out for the next six months.


  • Dec 16 Zometa - short infusion trip to Hookset NH
  • Dec 18 - Dec 31 - RVD Cycle 3
  • Jan 13 - Zometa - short infusion trip to Hookset NH
  • Jan 31 - Feb 10 - Chemo / Prep for Stem Cell Extraction Prep - 2 trips to DFCI plus special pills plus 9 injections that I do myself.
  • Feb 11 - Feb 12 - Actual extraction of stem cells
  • Feb 26 - May 31 - Five more RVD cycles
After that, I go onto some sort of maintenance program which I think is something once a month or so.

All the unscheduled times are rest/recovery periods. 

The stem cell extraction is apparently no picnic, but it is not nearly so bad actual stem cell transfusion which I am avoiding - at least for now. 

My understanding is that even the extraction is likely to cause me to loose my hair. I guess I should be glad that I don't have that much hair to loose. The challenge now is to time my haircuts so that I don't waste one.  I will probably try to do something before Christmas and then let it ride until the extraction. I know that this is important to everyone so I will be sure to keep you informed as to the details. 


1 comment:

  1. Hi,

    Frak found all of your blogs in a weird place in our computer. I didn't even know we were getting them. I am now caught up and am excited you have the place at Fox Hill where my mother in law lives. She is painful so I hope to avoid having you meet her!!!! You sounded great when you answered the phone the other day.

    Keep up the great spirits and I will keep you in my prayers.

    Hugs,

    Joan

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