After four days away

Blood work this morning: platelets 5. Previously treated with platelet infusions and IVIG, the doctor managing the ITP, the benign hematologist, Dr. A, is ordering a new drug, romiplostim, to be administered today and weekly every Friday, in addition to the Saturday Rituxan treatments. When he sees the blood work next Friday, he'll decide if it's time to start weaning off the Prednisone which doesn't seem to be helping the ITP. The lymphoma doctor, Dr. S, has also ordered 6 units of platelets today. We'll be heading to the ATC, Ambulatory Treatment Center, (where Eric gets his chemo and all of the infusions and transfusions) for the platelets and romiplostim shortly for what, we hope, will be a fairly quick process. Anything under 2 hours is quick.

Eric has been experiencing heart palpitations and shortness of breath in recent weeks and told Dr. A about it today. These are possible serious side effects of several of the things he is taking, but could also be signs of something else. ( Nothing is ever simple.) The doctor ordered an EKG which came back fine. He also ordered a CT of the chest to look at the heart and lungs and to rule out blood clots. (Can someone with almost no platelets really have a blood clot?) We are waiting for the results of the CT. I'll post more later to let you know the results.

The ITP continues to be a source of seemingly endless complications,  resulting in many, many hours at Anderson and a steady stream of procedures and tests. Please let the romiplostim be the answer we need!

Edit: We haven't heard back about the CT scan. The platelets and romiplostim took about 4 hours. Two good things: the romiplostim is just an injection, like getting a flu shot; much better than an IV. The IV from today was left in so Eric doesn't have to get another one tomorrow. He had to have blood drawn twice today and IVs inserted twice.

Back tomorrow at 2:30 for the Rituxan. This is the drug that makes Eric so sick, but that supposedly gets better the more you get it. Let's pray that's true. Tomorrow is the third dose. And then we hold our breaths again, hoping Eric doesn't get sick from the Rituxan, hoping to stay away from MD Anderson until next Friday's usual 7 am blood work,  and praying that we will finally have good platelet results and that they start tapering off the Prednisone.

Maureen