Posted 4/7/2018 1:33 PM (GMT -5)
Round Two (April 7th)
I had my second of four infusions this past Wednesday, April 4th. As with the first, the infusion itself was a non-issue. The IV insertion is still not anything that I look forward to, but again, was the only mildly unpleasent sensation of the infusion. My doctor told me that since I did so well with the first, they bumped up my chemo dose a bit on for this second infusion. I'm not sure if it was the higher dose, some traving issuses I had, or more likely, the combination but with the first infusion, I worked on Friday and was good with normal energy until Saturday afternoon. This time, though, I slept most of yesterday (Friday) and today (Saturday) am feeling the low engery since waking up.
Unfortunately, the logistics of this second round was a bit more complicated than the first. I had some travel problems, a problem with the Neulasta on body auto injector, and no heat when I returned home at 2:30 in the morning. I purposefully scheduled earlier flights this time so that my wife and I would have more time to sleep on this trip than we had on the first. Despite it now being officially Spring, both our flight out and back home were delayed due to snow and ice around the country delaying/cancelling flights. After cancelled and rerouted flights, we made it to bed the night before my second infusion at 2 AM Los Angeles time which was actually 5 AM for us. For the return trip on Thursday, we had the same and instead of getting home by 10:00 PM, we landed at 2:30 AM, drove home to find the house at 55 degrees (30's outside), and stayed up another hour or so tinkering around with furnance with no luck. Luckily, we were able to get it serviced and fixed early on Friday and as soon as I got back from an appointment to get my second to the last Lupron injection, both my wife and I slept most of the rest of the day. With my first infusion, the Neulasta on body auto injector worked flawlessly. Unfortunately, this time it did not. Last time, I was home by the time it was scheduled to go off, this time, I was in the air when it was supposed to happen. All was good, it beeped and started and then stopped with a flashing red light. Supposedly, being at 30,000 feet shouldn't have been a problem, and appearently, once and a while, the auto-injector can just be a dud. Still, for my next trip, I'm going to make sure I'm on the ground when it is scheduled to go off. The doctor's office is working on a replacement for me. However, since I can't easily run back to the doctor's office, it looks like my wife and I will be picking up the injection at our phramacist and giving me the shot ourselves. Since we are already doing the Trimix shots, I guess we can handle this one as well.
Additional interesting note regarding my hair -
While my infusions were originally scheduled for three weeks apart, this second once came about four weeks from the first due to my work schedule. about two weeks from my first infusion, some of my hair started falling out. Sort of like a dog shedding. I went ahead and got it cut to basically a short crew cut. Not really because enough had fallen out to cause it to be noticeable, but rather because I was getting tired of wiping hair off the shoulders of my suit throughout the work day. In the two weeks since I had it cut, it has noticeably grown back. Of course, since I just had my second infusion, I expect that it will begin to fall out again in about two weeks. Still, the fact that it came back so fast gives me hope that once I'm done with the treatments in May, my hair may return faster than I expected that it would.
Steve - Thank you so much for remembering that my second infusion was coming up. I appreciate it. Wonderful too to hear the PSA is headed the right way for you now! Your update is very helpful for my expectations as well. Still early on for me with this cycle but I'm keeping in mind that the fatigue may be a bit more for me this time than the last. I'll continue to update with differences I notice from this round as well.