We had brought reading material (Louise Penny's mysteries), but I barely had a chance to open my book before a nurse called my name and took me in to check my weight, oxygen level, blood pressure, and temperature. All okay, except my weight had leveled off over the past two months. I could use a few more pounds because it's been very windy in Santa Barbara lately.
I returned to the waiting room, but once again it was only a minute until the nurse returned and escorted us to Dr. Onco's office. (Dr. Onco is the name I use in Melanoma without a Cause.) It was not a big office and sparsely decorated, but I imagine the department chair will have a larger office with a better view in the new Cancer Center being built down the street.
Dr. Onco reviewed the results from my blood work and saw no problems. He mentioned that he had attended a conference recently where the variables associated with immunotherapy were discussed, including the critical question of why the drugs work on some melanoma patients and not others. Immunotherapy treatment is so new that many aspects of it are still puzzling, and researchers are apparently busy collecting and comparing data from people like me.
Which may explain why Bristol-Myers Squibb has contacted me, requesting access to my medical records. Actually, I contacted the company first on their public website, thanking them for producing drugs that have had such a beneficial effect and telling them I'd like to send a copy of my book to the CEO. Their response didn't explain why they wanted access to my records, but of course I was willing to provide it. I just wanted to check with Dr. Onco first, and he said, tongue in cheek, that maybe they wanted to use me in one of their Opdivo TV commercials. I replied that if that was true, I would only agree to appear if he went with me.
After confirming that I was still on track for scans in June, he approved me for treatment. Chris was the R.N. who set me up for my dose of Opdivo, which would take about an hour to pump into my veins. My veins seem to be getting harder to pierce, for both the lab techs and the oncology R.N.s, and he tried my hand as an alternative to my wrist or the crook in my arm. The vein resisted, however, and he reverted to my arm. The needle went in there surprisingly easily. Go figure.
While I was receiving my treatment, a Sansum dietitian named Sarah came in to offer suggestions on my diet and answer any questions we might have. We talked about what I've been eating and how I might enhance my diet to gain weight. She had good ideas and was more helpful than any other dietitian or nutritionist I'd ever met. When I told her that my sense of smell was basically non-existent, she said that I could smell my food even as I was chewing it because there was a passage to the olfactory system from the mouth. It was possible, she suggested, for me to enjoy the flavor of my food more if I chewed it longer. Interesting . . .
When Sarah left, it was countdown time for my treatment. I'm always a little nervous before and during my treatments, and always eager for them to be done. Finally, the pump beeped, and Chris came in to flush the drip system so that I would get every little bit of the Opdivo. A few minutes later, Elvira and I walked out of Sansum and high-fived. We had taken another step toward recovery.
One day at a time.
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