Checking In On George

Friday, Sept. 27, 2013

Today was George's appointment to have a cardiology consult and get his first injections of Neupogen which will make his bone marrow produce white blood cells.  He will inject this for about seven days.

I thought I'd put on my big girl pants and drive us into Boston for the visit.  We've taken cabs other times, as I didn't have enough courage to drive and go to these appointments.

I don't know where they moved the Kneeland Street exit from I 90, but, after circling Logan Airport, and driving all the way back to Cambridge, we ended up in a cab anyway, and 45 minutes late.  Fortunately, our stem cell nurse is great and worked around us.

George will inject daily until his tests indicate he has produced 10 million stem cells that can be taken out (also next week) and readied to be infused back in when he is hospitalized in October.

We go back to the hospital on Monday, (using the gps) and they will insert a catheter in his chest so they can use a central line for the chemo.  If his counts are good, they could start the apheresis (harvesting cells) on Monday.

George remains in good spirits (except for the tour of Logan, but who can blame him) and does a lot of resting.  His worst complaints are fatigue and all the fluid retention in his legs and arms.
He will see a new nephrologist on Monday as well, and hopefully, can get some more meds to reduce the fluid retention.   More to come.

Thanks for all the well wishes. j