I checked into Mercy Hospital today for my second round of chemotherapy. Because I had an allergic reaction to the Rituxin during my first round, Dr. Ledakis wanted me in the hospital so that I could be monitored more closely. Patty Wilcoxson met George & I at Mercy this morning at 8:30 AM in the Admitting Office. It was a great comfort to have her there with me. Patty always arrives with lots of presents – this visit included a beautiful silver clutch and very festive holiday jewelry which lights up J.
The hospital room in the Mary Catherine Bunting Building is quite lovely – it’s a private room and bath and it has a long, low sofa (which folds out if a guest wanted to stay overnight) and a recliner chair where I set up my laptop. My room (#1517) over looks downtown Baltimore and is truly breathtaking at night. Patty pointed out a few historic sights – it’s amazing what I don’t know about Baltimore! All of the nurses on the floor are wonderful. Mercy is quite proud of its Institute for Cancer Care sections and the 15th floor is devoted to patients with cancer. A very charming ‘educator’ arrived and introduced herself – giving me all sorts of information about what to expect over the next few days.
The nurses outfitted me with a heart monitor and began the chemotherapy regimen with innumerable pre-chemo drugs to alleviate allergies, gastric reflux and nausea. Unfortunately, once they began the dreaded Rituxin, it only took ten minutes for the allergic reaction to begin – so, once again we were forced to eliminate that drug. Once we had my allergic reaction under control, they began chemo drug #2 (Treanda). When you have an allergic reaction, there are a number of drugs infused to flush out the one that’s causing the reaction. One of those - Solu-Medrol – caused my blood sugar to spike to 440! They treated that with an injection of insulin which lowered the blood sugar count to 246…still too high, but better than 440.
Exhausted from the day, I slept well that night.
No comments:
Post a Comment