I am getting to this post a little late because things happened fairly quickly and I have been on the tired side of late — kind of like the kitten passed out in the picture. After my latest cold, which took a few weeks to get rid of, I went back on my chemo treatment and when I went to the oncologist, while my leukemia values had improved, my immune system values had not, so she decided to move forward with a treatment to boost my immune system. Remember how happy I was to be skipping the chemo chair this time around? Well, I will now be going for a monthly infusion to help my immune system rally so I am not so prone to getting ill. Eight hours and four bottles worth once a month.

But I will continue to do as I did before … Bring things to work on, bring movies to watch, and basically keep occupied during the process. Rather than be upset that I have another hurdle to go through, I am choosing to be happy because this will help me get well. And if I respond as well to this treatment as I am to the chemo, then I’ll be back to normal in no time at all. And I was absolutely delighted when they hooked up the port and it worked beautifully and didn’t even require flushing. I wasn’t sure whether the port would need to be cleared out or not because it has been nearly 3 years since its last use.

The biggest issue, per usual, was being allergic to Benadryl. My oncologist always gets nervous when starting a new treatment because part of the standard protocol she uses is to give allergy medication in advance of the treatment to minimize the potential for allergic reactions. And I am allergic to so many things … Then came the question as to whether we would use the steroid as we had with the treatment 2013/2014 instead of Benadryl. Slight problem, there were contraindications for the steroid with the chemo. Except because of what the contraindicators were, we decided to go ahead and use the steroids. I’m glad we did because I would have had an allergic reaction.

The biggest issues encountered with this infusion were increased fatigue levels and some joint pain. Fortunately, the joint pain has been manageable, and I have rested more this past week, hence my not posting this immediately. I finally caught up on rest yesterday and am not feeling as fatigued today. I will find out the results of the infusion and how the chemo is going tomorrow … so stay tuned. 🙂