Infusion Day

My life - our life - is currently measured week to week. Although we normally treat on Thursdays, with the Thanksgiving Holiday tomorrow, we made the journey to Froedtert this afternoon.

Also - because our appointment was in the middle of the day, I worked in the office this morning and met Andy at his appointment.  I got there just as he was heading back for labs.  

We waited for what seemed like an oddly long time to be called back to the infusion center after labs.  

It really wasn't THAT long of a wait.  

Today felt weird.  I wasn't nervous.  I wasn't scared.  I was just there.  And for the most part - Andy felt the same.  

The infusion center is a little busier in the afternoon, but we got settled in our 'room' and got Andy's vitals.  

BP holding steady, while still on the high end.  

Pulse Ox looking great

Temperature at 98.2 (Up .1 from last week...ok, ok, in the grand scheme of things, I can't focus on .1 - ha!)

I ran to the restroom real quick before any nurses came in and when I got back, Andy had his labs pulled up on MyChart.  As he rattled off numbers, I quickly looked through our notes to remember what was good and what wasn't. 

Hg (Hemoglobin) = 9.4  (Up .1 from last week)

Platelet = 244 (This number we need above 5o - or 100, depending on who you ask and it's up 154 from last week!)

ANC (white blood cell) = 1.2 (Need this number to be 1.0 and up 1 since last week!)

All this seemed really positive, but we also aren't immune to surprises, so we tried not to get our hopes up. 

Our nurse, Allie, came in and told us we were scheduled for one injection, but she had some questions first.  

Wait - us first - we have questions too!  Why just one shot?  And which one?

It turned out we were only scheduled for the Dara injection today.  But since we didn't get Velcade last week, why weren't we going to get it this week?  

She went through all her questions for Andy, basically determining if he was having any side effects to his treatments - spoiler, he's not.  

She placed a call into Dr. Al, who confirmed, just the Dara treatment today.  He did first ask her all of Andy's numbers, but then confirmed, just Dara.  

We THINK this is the cycle for Velcade - 3 weeks on and 1 week off. And even if we didn't get treatment last week, we still would skip this week.  

We see Dr. Al next Thursday, so we'll be sure to get clarification that.  We also need to figure out what the heck we are doing about the Revlimid.  

So.  That was out appointment today.   We feel good that we have more drugs in the system that are fighting cancer than are just helping increase white blood cell counts.  But I do have to offer up a prayer of Thanksgiving because that shot did EXACTLY what it was supposed to do!

And now...we start thinking about next week...