We are still early in the morning on Saturday Sept 14, but I thought I would start blogging early today. So what came of day one? I received two injections during the night. The first at 11pm and the second at 3am. It is an interesting experience to wake up in the middle of the night just in time to watch someone plunge a needle into your arm. Fortunately, the nurses here are good at what they do and there is no pain or discomfort with any of this.
As a side note...the last two international patients had two internal jugular catheters installed during their procedure. To say the least, I was not crazy about even having one and the thought of having it done twice freaks me right out. I approached Dr. Fedorenko about the possibility of doing the apheresis portion of the treatment though an arm catheter instead, and after reading the look of terror on my face, he thoughtfully agreed. From what I hear, it is not the worst procedure to have done; very quick and pain free, but just the thought of a catheter in my neck....blech!
After receiving the Solumedrol yesterday (this was the IV steroid) Tanya and I went out for a nice long stroll around the hospital grounds. Interestingly, one of the things I noticed right away was that my gait was better than it had been in the past two months. Tanya even commented that I was walking much faster than usual. I attributed it to the steroids as they are strong anti-inflammatories for our bodies. I asked Dr. Fedorenko about this this morning and he told me this may be a good sign that I do have active inflammation in my body which bodes well for this form of treatment. Remember, we are going to be destroying all of the leukocytes that are involved in creating this inflammation around my central nervous system. It may be a bit early to celebrate this, but I'm going to take this little golden nugget and put it in my back pocket. We will see what today's dose brings...we hope more of the same!
I am going to include a time line sheet that Dr. Fedorenko provided me for the duration of the treatment. It gives a general idea of times for each segment of treatment.
As a side note...the last two international patients had two internal jugular catheters installed during their procedure. To say the least, I was not crazy about even having one and the thought of having it done twice freaks me right out. I approached Dr. Fedorenko about the possibility of doing the apheresis portion of the treatment though an arm catheter instead, and after reading the look of terror on my face, he thoughtfully agreed. From what I hear, it is not the worst procedure to have done; very quick and pain free, but just the thought of a catheter in my neck....blech!
After receiving the Solumedrol yesterday (this was the IV steroid) Tanya and I went out for a nice long stroll around the hospital grounds. Interestingly, one of the things I noticed right away was that my gait was better than it had been in the past two months. Tanya even commented that I was walking much faster than usual. I attributed it to the steroids as they are strong anti-inflammatories for our bodies. I asked Dr. Fedorenko about this this morning and he told me this may be a good sign that I do have active inflammation in my body which bodes well for this form of treatment. Remember, we are going to be destroying all of the leukocytes that are involved in creating this inflammation around my central nervous system. It may be a bit early to celebrate this, but I'm going to take this little golden nugget and put it in my back pocket. We will see what today's dose brings...we hope more of the same!
I am going to include a time line sheet that Dr. Fedorenko provided me for the duration of the treatment. It gives a general idea of times for each segment of treatment.
One month from today, I will be celebrating on a plane home to Ottawa. Lots to do between now and then, but time will go quickly. What a new start it will be!