Yet Another Good Infusion

Rituxan #5 was today.

I met with Dr. R before the infusion, as usual.

Blood work looks decent, though my White Blood Cell counts were a little below normal. This is not unexpected -- Rituxan kills off White Blood Cells. It means, in some ways, that it's doing its job. However, it can also work a little too well, as it seems might be happening here. I asked Dr. R what the low count meant, and he gave me a long explanation involving armies, navies, air force pilots, and some other stuff, but basically the White Blood Cell count is one measure of immune function -- not the only one, but the most easily measurable one.

It's not dangerously low, so he's not advising me to avoid malls or anything like that. But he is going to keep a close eye on the blood counts next week when I come in for the treatment, and if it's below a certain level, we're not going to take a chance on increased infection risk, and we'll skip treatment #6. If it stays at about the same level, we'll go forward with #6. It sounds like either way, I'm probably not going beyond 6 rounds. My White Blood Cell counts should return to normal in a month or so.

We also talked about the pictures he'll take to check on my progress. We'd talked about doing an ultrasound in order to spare me some radiation. He's reversed course -- he thinks a CT scan is probably the best way to go. Since the last CT revealed some deeper nodes, he's concerned that they might not show up well on an ultrasound. Having a CT scan will be the best way to accurately compare how I'm doing now with how I was doing at the beginning of January. Makes sense to me.

He wants to give the Rituxan a little more time to work before we check the progress, so I'll have the scan on March 2 and meet with him a few days later.

The infusion itself went smoothly again. I had Benedryl pills instead of a Benedryl infusion this time, so I wasn't quite so tired and loopy. Which was nice.

We're still rolling right along.....