Trial Begins

After a very long and busy week, I have finally started the clinical trial here at MD Anderson. I made it to Houston Monday afternoon and had about a day to rest before testing began. Tuesday, I had to go to MDA for blood work and the CT scan. I arrived at the clinic around noon for blood work, then had about 3 hours to waste before I could check in for my scan. I finally got checked in to prepare for the CT scan, after which I had to wait close to 3 hours before they called me back for the scan. Things finally got rolling and they did the CT scan, as well as a chest x-ray and we were finally done around 7 PM. Long day #1... done...

Long day #2... even LONGER!! Tuesday afternoon while I was waiting for the scan, I got a voicemail from the clinical trial supervisor to inform me that they finally scheduled my hearing test for first thing wednesday morning. So wednesday morning, I headed to MDA at 8:30 AM for the hearing test. While en route, I got another phone call saying they needed to take additional blood for research for the trial and asked if I could do that while I was there. So I got my hearing test done (and no surprise, my hearing was perfectly fine!) and gave the blood for research and headed home for the time being...
I was scheduled to be back at MDA to meet with my dr before treatment at 4PM. Around 2:30, I got another phone call from the trial supervisor informing me they needed to get an ECG before I could start treatment. So.... I got an ECG done before my dr's appt, and was late for my 4PM appt, which incidentally didn't matter since my dr was over 2 hours late seeing me. I had to be okayed by the dr before I could even begin treatment so after I finally saw the doctor and got his "blessing" to go ahead, I finally got to start treatment. By then it was around 7PM and I was told the treatment would last about 3.5 hours. LUCKILY, each patient is given their own little room with a bed and TV, and they even fed me dinner. Treatment actually lasted about 3 hours and I was done just after 10PM. It went very smoothly, it was just a vveeerrrryyyy long day. And so far, I have had no side effects from the meds. I haven't been worn out or tired and haven't feel ill at all. They will do blood work every week before treatment to monitor my counts, but they don't expect anything major to happen.

So, treatment #1 done!! Treatment #2 will be next Wednesday at 4PM and hopefully it will go more smoothly and won't be an all day event!! I'll keep everyone updated and as always, thank you so much for keeping me in your prayers this week.