3rd Day of Chemo Is Over

I should say the 3rd and last day of the roughest chemo is over. This regimen consisted of an IV cocktail of Fludarabine, Campath, and Cytoxan, all of which I have had before but in smaller doses. This is part of the ablative chemotherapy they use pre-transplant. To ablate is to kill off, so they use this combo to partially kill off my bone marrow in order to make it easier for the new stem cells to engraft or to take root.

This stuff was suppose to make me pretty nauseous. But so far so good. I've actually been walking 3 miles a day. It takes 5 trips around the whole floor to go a mile. So I have been making 15 trips around the floor. Actually, today I make 17 1/2 trips for 3 1/2 miles. My nurses hammer home the point that the people that do the best are the ones who get excercise. So I'm working hard at it. Plus it gets me out of this room!

I'm on the 11th floor of the building called the Alkek Hospital, which was named after it's benefactors whose last name was, you guessed it, Alkek. There are many buildings, clinics, gardens, etc. that make up M. D. Aderson which are named for their respective benefactors. I am confined to this floor because it is a clean room floor. When I leave my room I have to wear a face mask and latex gloves, and anyone who comes into my room has to wear a mask and gloves.

My blood counts are dropping after the chemo and I expect my white counts to be zero in the next few days. I'm hoping the red counts stay up and I can avoid getting transfusions of platelets and blood, but that is not likely. Apparently the chemo is quite thorough.

I have tomorrow, Wednesday, "off." Then I get a big bag of Rituxan on Thursday and hopefully stem cells on Friday. The stem cells depend on if they can get enough from the donor in one day. They will start the harvest from the donor on Thursday, so keep him in your prayers.