Showing posts with label Infusions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Infusions. Show all posts

Thursday, October 7

Chemo Day

Every 4 weeks, I am scheduled for an infusion of Opdivo to counteract and prevent the melanoma inside my body from growing...   and, every 4 weeks, either the day before or the day after, I am scheduled for an infusion of IVIG to help boost my immune system back to normalacy...

The Opdivo infusions once started last 30 minutes whereas the IVIG infusions once started last almost 2 and 1/2 hours...  which still seems like a short period of time to me since my previous chemo infusions of Rituxan lasted 5-6 hours.

I am also taking 2 - 140mg tablets of Imbruvica to counteract and prevent my non-Hodgkin's lymphoma from growing as well...  those pills are usually taken in the mornings.

Chemo Day and IVIG Day, are both early morning days as I am up at 5:30 am and leave the house a little after 6:00 am, arriviug at UT Medical about 7:15 am depending upon traffic which can never be predicted, since there seems to be traffic accidents every day of the week, even though their times vary.

Instead of putting an IV into my arm, I have had a port inserted in my upper chest on the right side just below the colar bone...  it is a dual port, so each time it is used, the nurses try to use the other access point to make sure that both openings are constasting flushed and kept from clogging.

I call this chemo day but in reality it is immunotherapy day which has virtually no adverse side effects for me these days but at one point, I was experiencing fatigue, nausea, loss of appetite, and general malaise.

I am in my 14th year so it would appear that something is working.