I had “flu symptoms” over the weekend – chills, random sweats, muscle and joint aches, headaches. So Monday morning I called the Hemo/Onc doctor’s office to see I should be calling them or my regular doctor. They said come in to be seen.
In the office the medical assistant goes through all the work up, no fever, BP is a little low… Asks all the “flu” questions – Yes is the answer to almost all of them. This gets me a jam-fancy mask to cover my mouth and nose. Difficulty breathing? Not until I put this mask on…
Doctor Ferber comes in, does his exam, asks a few more questions, poke, prod, listen to my lungs, the whole routine.
Then we talk.
He says with my white blood cell count already being low, if it is the flu I would need IV antibiotics. And there is involvement of the bone marrow but he hasn’t gotten the full report back yet. But the symptoms also match the lymphoma being more active too. He tells me he has been calling his contact at Penn every day but he hasn’t called him back. “I don’t want to wait any longer. I want to start treatment now before you get sicker and we have a bigger problem”. He said he was going to call Penn one more time and he was calling Jefferson too.
He said he was giving me scripts for blood work to see where my counts are and that he was going to call the hospital to set up admission…
I asked, “When would I go to the hospital?”
“Usually about 8 o’clock”.
“No, like what day, next week?”
“Probably Wednesday or Thursday”
“Uh… oh, ok….”
I’m sure the mask hid the shocked look on my face!!!
“You had originally said I could wait until after Thanksgiving”.
“I don’t want to wait that long and you get sicker”.
He is going to start treatment using the “recipe” he knows shouldn’t interfere with a stem cell transplant. He said there are other recipes, but they sometimes affect the options for stem cell transplant and that this one is a proven formula. So it looks like it will be hyper-CVAD, which requires a 5-day hospital stay, about 3 weeks at home and back in for another 5 days for the “B” part of the recipe. Not exactly sure how many cycles of this yet, but they were talking about 4 cycles originally. I guess the SCT folks may want to adjust that.
He also advised me that if I get any sicker, or have a fever of 100.4 or higher IMMEDIATELY go to the hospital and have them call him. He even gave me his CELL NUMBER in case the regular Cooper number didn’t get him!
I went first thing this morning for the blood tests and now I wait for "the call".
In the office the medical assistant goes through all the work up, no fever, BP is a little low… Asks all the “flu” questions – Yes is the answer to almost all of them. This gets me a jam-fancy mask to cover my mouth and nose. Difficulty breathing? Not until I put this mask on…
Doctor Ferber comes in, does his exam, asks a few more questions, poke, prod, listen to my lungs, the whole routine.
Then we talk.
He says with my white blood cell count already being low, if it is the flu I would need IV antibiotics. And there is involvement of the bone marrow but he hasn’t gotten the full report back yet. But the symptoms also match the lymphoma being more active too. He tells me he has been calling his contact at Penn every day but he hasn’t called him back. “I don’t want to wait any longer. I want to start treatment now before you get sicker and we have a bigger problem”. He said he was going to call Penn one more time and he was calling Jefferson too.
He said he was giving me scripts for blood work to see where my counts are and that he was going to call the hospital to set up admission…
I asked, “When would I go to the hospital?”
“Usually about 8 o’clock”.
“No, like what day, next week?”
“Probably Wednesday or Thursday”
“Uh… oh, ok….”
I’m sure the mask hid the shocked look on my face!!!
“You had originally said I could wait until after Thanksgiving”.
“I don’t want to wait that long and you get sicker”.
He is going to start treatment using the “recipe” he knows shouldn’t interfere with a stem cell transplant. He said there are other recipes, but they sometimes affect the options for stem cell transplant and that this one is a proven formula. So it looks like it will be hyper-CVAD, which requires a 5-day hospital stay, about 3 weeks at home and back in for another 5 days for the “B” part of the recipe. Not exactly sure how many cycles of this yet, but they were talking about 4 cycles originally. I guess the SCT folks may want to adjust that.
He also advised me that if I get any sicker, or have a fever of 100.4 or higher IMMEDIATELY go to the hospital and have them call him. He even gave me his CELL NUMBER in case the regular Cooper number didn’t get him!
I went first thing this morning for the blood tests and now I wait for "the call".