Life's Journey with Multiple Myeloma

Alpesh had his Pet Scan on Tuesday to determine the hotspots.  We do not have the results yet so will keep you posted when we hear something.

Alpesh went into hospital yesterday.  We arrived at 5am for his surgery to have a Hickman Line inserted into his chest.  They got him ready for surgery at 6:30am but did not take him into surgery until 9:30am!  I have a great picture of Alpesh with his surgery cap on.  Alpesh said he felt like he wanted to serve me some food as he looked like a cafeteria employee.  That picture will be shared much later when he is better – it will be worth the wait, believe me!  J 

Dr Khouzam who operated on him was excellent and luckily there were no complications and everything went well except that he has 3 tubes extending out of his chest at the moment which is a constant reminder to me of what he is going through.  It is painful to watch him go through this and we all feel helpless because there is nothing we can do to “make it go away”. 

They transferred Alpesh to the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at around noon where he was in a “temporary” room until 6pm when he was finally moved to his actual room.  That afternoon they started an IV saline drip for the first hour, post-surgery antibiotics for another hour, then a Cytoxan drip for 2 hours and then back on the saline drip for 24 hours.  The Cytoxan is highly toxic and needs to be flushed out of his system regularly to ensure it does not cause any damage in his body. 

The side effects?  There are apparently many to choose from L and so far he feels nauseous, has lost his appetite and has actually lost some magnesium and phosphate in his blood which they are pumping him with at the moment.  He is also being given anti-nausea medication which is making him drowsy. Hopefully he will get some much needed rest.

I am at the hospital at the moment.  Today we will be shown how to look after the Hickman Line to ensure it does not get infected.  We are not entirely sure how long Dr Reddy wants him to keep this inside him.  It will be used for the stem-cell harvest and is then usually used for the bone marrow transplant but since Alpesh is not planning to do the transplant as yet, we don’t know what Dr Reddy’s plans are.  Of course the port can be used as an access point for Velcade when Alpesh goes back on the RDV regime for four cycles but it has the risk of infection so we will have to weigh up pros and cons and decide what do after the stem cell harvest. 

Today, we will also be shown how to self-inject the Neupogen for the next 10 days so that Alpesh can mobilize the stem cells ready for harvest.  We have been told that he will be discharged this evening.

Hospitals are never great places to write about unless you are there for the birth of a baby but the staff at Florida Hospital have been excellent and very attentive, so we are truly grateful to them for making the experience tolerable. 

We are looking forward now and keeping our fingers crossed that everything will go well for the stem cell harvest during week of February 9^th.  We feel confident that the cells harvested will be “clean” and feel comfortable knowing that the auto transplant is a viable option for us.

One thing, I’ve been meaning to let you all know about is an update on Alpesh’s eye.   I think I had mentioned in a previous entry that Alpesh’s eye had swollen up (left eye only) while he was on his last cycle of the RDV combo.  His vision was also a little blurry.  He had his eyes tested on Wednesday this week and the doctor has given him the all clear in terms of vision (still 20/20) and in terms of eye-pressure,which was our biggest fear since some of the chemo drugs are known to cause glaucoma.  It looks like the swollen eye (which has now gone) may have just been an allergy.   Phew!  

[by Sima]

This entry was posted on January 30, 2009 at 3:24 pm and is filed under Treatment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.