Long day with the silver bullet therapy...

Lenore and I arrived at the clinic at 9:00 this morning for my first round of Rituxan -- I finally made it home at 7:30 this evening. It was a long, slow day but fortunately Mom & Dad were here so that gave Lenore a break. Apparently, some bodies (e.g., mine) don't especially like Rituxan. Consequently, they usually start with a very slow drip rate and increase it gradually over the day. When we would get the dose rate up about halfway I'd start to have a reaction so the nurses would pause the delivery of Rituxan and give me antihistamines and a steroid to counteract it. The first time I had a reaction I got an itchy rash on my chest; the second was more disconcerting since I suddenly had a hard time swallowing and felt very hot and flush. The end result of all this was a slow delivery -- it felt like I was driving from Bemidji to the Twin Cities at twenty miles an hour. I have been assured that round two will likely go better.

I did get some positive news today. My blood LDH levels were in the middle of normal range suggesting that there isn't some as yet undiscovered tumor lurking elsewhere in my body; preliminary analysis of the bone biopsy also looked got but we still have to wait until next week for final results on both that and the stomach biopsy.