Preventitve Maintenance...

I certainly have a busy week ahead of me.
Besides the remaining papers that need to be written, I have a few long days at Sloan.

Tuesday, I'll be at Sloan getting a medicine called Rituximab. It's a monoclonal antibody which is used to treat B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

But Nick, I thought all the pre-transplant chemo and radiation got rid of your cancer?

That's a very good question! While we have no reason to think the cancer is back, this is being done as a preventative measure. This medicine specifically targets B-Cells (a type of white blood cell) and triggers the cell to die.

Why do we want to do that?

Because my cancer was a B-Cell cancer, the thought process is to suppress the B-Cells in my body for a little longer and allow the donor marrow to get stronger. The hope is that any of my body's own B-Cells that were left will be eliminated allowing only new donor B-Cells to grow.

We'll do this once ever other month... not sure for how long


On Tuesday, my doctor will also do our first T-Cell count!
It will only be 34 days out, but what the heck.

Thursday...

On Thursday we have my first set of scans since transplant. Hooray Hooray!


Busy week ahead, so in preparation it's time to get some sleep!