Sun coming up, under the fog - 41st & Judah at 7am.
The doctor gave us some good news today. Dave's hematocrit is 24 - first time it's been over 20 in about 5 weeks. It's not dropping as fast as it was a few weeks ago. Also, his white count is not rising as fast, between chemo infusions, as it was a few months ago. And he gained 2 pounds this time, instead of losing (he's lost 35 pounds since this thing began.) So the doc feels like we're making progress against the CLL and the AHA.
She's dropping the dose on the Prednisone (from 40 to 20 mg a day.) He'll continue with his previously scheduled infusions of Fludarabine, Mitoxantrone and Rituxan this month and next month. We'd never discussed treatment beyond that point, but Dave has been hoping for a remission (and no more treatment) at the end of six months. So when Dave asked her what happens after next month's infusion, and she said she wanted to continue the Rituxan, and weekly blood counts, I thought he was going to be disappointed. Especially when he asked her, "For how long?" and she said for 2 years!
As we were leaving the hospital, I asked him if he was OK with continuing the Rituxan infusions for 2 years, and he said, "Fuck, YEAH, I'm OK with that - it means she thinks I'm going to live for two years!"
3 comments:
I looked at the photo and the caption and read the posting esp. Dave's reply to your question - and the reggae song "I Can See Clearly Now" started playing in my hea
A lot of movie nights to look forward to!
I've been counting on sticking around another 30 years and hearing the Doc plan on a two year treatment is the most concrete number she's mentioned. She has said vague things like "People live a long time with this." "This is very treatable." etc. And research tells us that in fact people do live a long time with CLL: 28 years and counting in one case I've heard of. Bottom line is I'm responding well to the treatment and it looks like this will be a treatable situation for some time to come.
You go dude! I feel a party coming on...
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