The road ahead

This is part 4 of 4 for “The Big Update”, covering all the upcoming appointments and the road ahead.  The previous parts are linked below just in case you missed them.

• An update on our wedding
• An update on Rex, the family German Shepherd
• An update on the fertility treatments
• An update on upcoming appointments

An Update on Upcoming Appointments

If you’ve caught updates 1 through 3 for today, you’ve read about the first of Bex’ upcoming appointments already.  This morning at 7am was the IVF extraction, and it kicked off a solid calendar of events leading up to her first chemotherapy infusion this Wednesday.

Tomorrow morning at 8am Bex will have a port installed through which all of her chemotherapy is administered.  The eventual stem cell transplant also requires a port, so with any luck this is the only one she’ll need until we find ourselves on the other side of this adventure.

Tuesday we have our first meeting with the stem cell transplant team up in Boston.  Right now we have many, many questions associated with the transplant process, and by the end of the day Tuesday hopefully we’ll have the answers.

Finally, Wednesday is the “big day” on the horizon.  This is the day that Bex starts her regimen of ICE chemotherapy.  In the morning we’ll start by attending a quick “chemo school” of sorts so that we understand what to expect during the course of treatments (and most importantly how it differs from the ABVD regimen she was on during her first round in 2007).  Everything we’ve read about ICE so far indicates it’s a two to three day course of infusions, and luckily for this first round Bex’ oncologist has agreed that she should be admitted instead of receiving them as an outpatient since we don’t know how her body will react to the treatment.  Due to this precaution we expect Bex to be in the hospital from Wednesday through Friday this week, but we’ll know more once the treatment gets rolling on Wednesday.  Our best understanding right now is that Bex will receive 6 or 12 weeks of this regimen before heading into transplant, but we’ll have to take it all as it comes.

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