Lots of administrative stuff these past 2 days..... worked out the final round of chemo and the stem cell calendar, scheduling appointments, etc. for now through the beginning of August. It's a LOT but we're on the path now. Lots of deep breathing and exhaling!
Dr. Menco agreed to postpone his last chemo by a week to allow Ed to go to the lake this weekend. So we're off tomorrow mid-day - he was anxious to leave today but I just couldn't unravel everything and regroup that quickly. A good summer hurrah, me with my lasso at the ready if needed. A tame-ish holiday weekend is high on my wish list. I'll report back early next week......
Next chemo is scheduled for June 2nd, which will be outpatient at Dr. Menco's office - just a few hours of infusion. The afternoon we will spend at UCLA signing consent forms, having blood work, meeting with Dr. DeVos and then attending the stem cell support group montthly meeting that evening. A very long day. Then home for 11 days of daily injections of Neupagen to stimulate the cells while we are keeping our fingers crossed that he doesn't develop fevers or infection this time during his white cell crash.....willl be watching him very closely this time and putting big restrictions on his activities and germ contact.
On June 14th, he will have the porta-cath surgically inserted around 6:30 AM and a few hours later they will start the harvesting of the stem cells at the outpatient clinic next door to the the hospital at UCLA. That collection process will continue each day until they have retreived enough for the procedure - usually 3 to 5 days are needed. The timing worked out great for him to be home for Father's Day weekend and then he will be admitted to UCLA on the 21st for the big event. The final chemo session will start on the 22nd. Five days of very strong chemo for about 16 hours a day - pretty rough stuff, then one day of rest (in the hospital) and then the stem cell transplantation on the 28th. All of this will be inpatient at UCLA in the stem cell unit. They expect his counts to start dropping pretty dramatically within a few days and he'll be in "protective isolation" starting around the 1st of July.
Then we wait and watch while he gets blood products and whatever else he may need to cope with the aftermath of the chemo until his counts start to come up, signalling that the stem cells are engrafting and have rescued him. This waiting period is the roughest and most difficult time. They hope the engraftment process will take hold in about 10-12 days and his immune system will start to rebuild itself. Once his counts have reached .5 for 3 days in a row (still a VERY low white count number but a signal that progress is in the right direction) and he's feeling up to it, they may release him to stay in a facility very close to UCLA for probably another 2 weeks where we can be close by for tranfusions, etc. which are usually required quite often. Then when he's stable, we'll be able to go back to Thousand Oaks for his long-term recovery and healing, probably sometime the end of July or beginning of August.
That's the long and the short of it as of this moment. Thngs could change, but this is as close to a schedule as we have right now.
Ed has been feeling better the past 2-3 days and is really looking forward to getting away for a few days and enjoying the down time.
Hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! Be safe and enjoy the sunshine!
Ed, don't overdo it this weekend.
ReplyDeleteLove you man, TC
Bless you for taking a few minutes to publish this. I do believe that there are more desirable solutions.
ReplyDeleteThen we wait and watch while he gets blood products and whatever else he may need to cope with the aftermath of the chemo until his counts start to come up, signalling that the stem cells are engrafting and have rescued him.
ReplyDeleteIt's a LOT but we're on the path now. Lots of deep breathing and exhaling!
ReplyDeleteHey just a thought, you would probably get more readers if you interviewed controversial people for your blog.
ReplyDelete