Day one of pre-transplant chemo

I made it to the clinic early for my 9 am appointment today, I think it's the first time I ever made it there early! I was up early partially from nerves and partially from the mockingbird that was singing ALL night. I woke up at 2 am and again 4 am and I could hear him hard at work practicing his repertoire. I guess he's an overachiever!

I'm happy to report the clinic visit was all really pretty uneventful!

I was called back pretty quickly and taken to a private treatment room. They took my vitals and the nurse hooked up a saline IV (extra fluids to help your kidneys process the chemo drugs) and drew blood for labs. She said we would have to wait on the results before ordering the meds. She also told me to wait on taking the dex until the labs were back since I guess there was a small chance they wouldn't have me start all the chemo today based on the results.

Alex and I killed a little time playing Words with Friends. He gets a lot of enjoyment out of almost always kicking my butt...a little too much enjoyment!

Labs came back looking fine and so she ordered all the meds...the chemo drugs (melphalan and velcade) along with two anti nausea meds (Emend and Kytril), and a shot of Lovenox to prevent blood clots from the thalidomide I will take this evening. She gave the ok to take the dex, and brought me some ice chips to suck on while waiting for everything to come from the pharmacy. The ice chips are to help prevent mouth sores that can occur with the melphalan. The thinking is that the coldness restricts the blood vessels to the mucosa and softens then dose of drug delivered there, which in turn can decrease the likelihood of developing and kind of sores. She freely admitted there was no hard evidence it works, but they always have their patients use them. Fine by me!

The APN came in to chat as well. I have to admit I was a little disappointed to find out you don't get the same one each time since I loved the one I had last time, but the one for this round is very nice too. She just went over the basics of what to expect and checked my supportive medication list.

Meds came back pretty quickly and she gave the velcade shot and hooked the melphalan up on the infusion pump. It was just a 20 minute infusion, and before I knew it the pump was beeping that bit had finished. After that she just needed to change the dressing on my central line and then we were free to go for the day, all in all it was under 3 hours.

Now I just need to take the Thalidomide tonight and the rest of my supportive meds, then report back at 9 am tomorrow for more melphalan. In case you were wondering (and I'm sure you weren't!) they recommend taking the dex in the morning since it tends to make you hyper, and then taking the thalidomide at night since it's a sedative so as to give you the best chance of being able to sleep at night. I don't remember really having trouble sleeping last time, but we'll see what this round brings!

We made an exciting trip to the post office to mail our tax returns, then stopped at the grocery store or a couple of things. I think we are going to head up to check out the River Market District downtown for lunch since it's a gorgeous day and I'm feeling pretty good!

Much love to everyone!

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