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Rituxi-CHOP
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March 21st, 2004. Sorry for the late update, but I've been a bit out of it the last few days from the treatments, I guess. Especially the prednisone. That stuff is just plain no fun at all for me. It doesn't let me sleep more than a few hours at a time usually, and it makes me a bit moody. Last Monday, I got a call from Washington Memorial Hospital, saying that they wanted to schedule the biopsy on Marvin. First though, they'd need the PET scan films from St. Rose Hospital where I'd had the PET scan done. They wanted to know if I could pick them up and transfer them. They said the alternate was to have St. Rose mail them to Washington Memorial, which would take longer. I told them it was no problem for me, and asked them to make the phone call necessary to authorize it all. A little while later, I got another phone call saying that it was all set, and where to go in St. Rose to pick them up, as well as who to give them to at Washington Memorial when I got them there. Along the way, I made a stop to scan the PET scan. You know me, I just can't resist that kind of stuff! So, here's what one of my PET scans looks like:
Right away, you notice that there are some red circles here and there. As before, I'm guessing that's marvin. Here's a closer look at one of them:
Oh, and I made a new toon that includes a negative of the above:
Okay, so that's the PET scan stuff. I transported them to the hospital like I was supposed to and left them with the people I was supposed to, and waited for someone to look at them and schedule the biopsy. Back to the 'regular' stuff... I showed up at the doc's office last Wednesday to get my scheduled Rituxan treatment. Delia was a little surprised to see me, and said I wasn't in her computer schedule for that day. I pulled out the schedule she'd written on the doc's card in my wallet, and there it was, so it was just some little computer glitch. No big deal. Pam came in and said that unfortunately, she didn't have the Rituxan there to administer it to me that day. She said we could do the CHOP instead, but she didn't have all the chemicals for that either, at least, not at that office. They have another office not too far away, in the valley, where she said they have all the CHOP stuff, and could do it over there. That sounded fine to me, so I got the directions, and we headed over to the other office. Delia was very apologetic, but really, it was no big deal at all, and I told her she really shouldn't worry about it at all. The other office was very nice, and was bigger, with more comfy chairs and patients and people working in it. They were all very friendly, and I was very comfortable. Pam met us there and set me up for the CHOP drip, and it all went just fine. I let Pam know that I was running out of Prednisone, so she called in another prescription of it for me at the local pharmacy I use.The next day, Thursday, I went back to the doc's office for my rescheduled Rituxan treatment. Again, Pam hooked me up for the drip, and again, everything went just fine. Afterwards, I picked up the prednisone prescription and headed back to the house to sleep off the rest of the Benedryl. On Friday, I got the call from Washington Memorial Hospital about the biopsy schedule. Monday morning I'll head into admitting at 9:am. I've got to fast after midnight the night before - nothing but water till after it's over, but they said they'd feed me lunch while I'm there in recovery. I'll be out of the hospital later the same day. No problem. I'll give you all the details when I get out, but I think they're just going to go in through my abdomen with a needle and suck out some of Marvin's cells to get a closer look at them. I'll probably be awake the whole time, under a local anesthetic to numb the skin a bit where they go through it. It'd be cool to get pics, but I doubt they'll let me go that far...
Next: Bit-O-Marvin
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LOL!
I kill myself! 