All-in-all it's been a pretty uneventful year; a scan a month ago showed minimal disease progression within my abdominal cavity, but did show continued infiltration of CLL/SLL cells into my skin. An overt symptom of this continued infiltration has been a persistent series of lesions on my legs and arms that have progressed and do not ever completely heal; pretty unsightly and uncomfortable. My dermatologist, rheumatologist and hematologist/oncologist have been debating the source of these lesions for the past eighteen months. As is typical with the medical profession, each doctor has been pointing to the others' specialty as the source of my malady. However, after ruling out any dermatological or rheumatological sources, those specialists have persistently been pointing to CLL/SLL as the source of the problem (i.e. "leukemia cutis"). Though Dr. Kaplan has consistently vacillated on whether or not my blood cancer is the source, he has finally accepted that this is likely the case and has relented, agreeing that it is time to treat once again in order to sort out my skin issues and reduce my tumor load.
PRIOR TREATMENT: Almost exactly three years ago, commencing on February 14, 2013, I began my first treatment for my disease; a once-a-week, four week series of infusions of Rituxan (also known as "Rituximab"). Unfortunately, the treatment did little to nothing to reduce my tumor load and in fact really pissed of the "Lupus gods"; my autoimmune joint pain went into overdrive! At the end of the day, Rituxan failed to place me into remission, only serving to slow the progression of the disease.
ROUND TWO: Now to explain the title of this post... Beginning Thursday of this week (February 11th) I will begin a six-month, two-day per month course of chemotherapy/immunotherapy infusions. On the first day I will receive an infusion of Rituxan (an immunotherapy drug synthesized from the combination of mouse and human antibodies that target specific chemical markers on B-Lymphocytes involved in both CLL/SLL and Lupus) followed by an infusion of Bendamustine (a mustard gas-derived chemotherapy drug that dates back to World War II) - in other words, I'll be receiving "mouse juice with a side of mustard". My second infusion day (Friday) will consist of another infusion of Rituxan. Twenty-eight days later, the cycle begins again and will repeat until the treatment series concludes in mid-July.
The treatment, known in the blood cancer community as B-R is currently a highly regarded first-line chemotherapy-based treatment for CLL/SLL that is generally well tolerated and can result in durable remissions lasting a median of 69-months. The bit of discomfort I may experience (i.e. intestinal discomfort, low blood counts, fatigue, etc.) will all be well worth it if I am finally placed into remission for an extended period of time!
After living with the CLL/SLL for the past six years (my sixth cancerversary is February 19th) and being on "watch and wait" status (also know as "watch and worry"), I'm actually feeling very good about the decision to FINALLY bring out the big guns to actually try to fight the disease into submission for an extended period of time, rather than waiting for the bomb to finally drop out of the sky!
Well, that's it for the moment. Expect more frequent updates over the course of the coming months as I experience the wonderful effects of chemotherapy!
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