The Living Saga of Garvin Smith - Are you Dying to Read It? Part 10

OUCH! Oweee, owweee, owweeeee!
Rituxan is a harsh mistress and a mean mistreater. Sucking on the chemo juice can be very painful. Since Rituxam targets the terrorist B-cell Lymphocytes, like an AC130 Gunship with quad miniguns firing 6,000 rounds a piece, a lot of death and destruction occurs at one time. One's lymph nodes start to hurt, then the aching pain increases as terrorist B-cell Lymphocytes die by the thousands. One finally cries out in pain, "Help me!" The oncology nurses check with the doctor. Decadron and Benadryl are ordered and the Retuxin stopped. Decadron (literally translated from a galaxy far, far, away, means, "ten drones", are sent in to clean up some of the mess and mask the pain. (Yes, Debbie, I believe some of this is for symptomatic relief from the death and destruction that is occurring.) Ahh! Relief! The pain slowly subsides and the Retuxin is restarted. I liken Retuxin to the nanites used in the most excellent movie "I Robot", to kill the out of control VIKI (Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence) computer. Nanites (miniature robot computers) were injected into the controlling master main frame computer to erase (destroy) VIKI's memory, much like Rituxan is used to target and kill the B-cell Lymphocytes that don't have the memory code to die. This is only one reason "I Robot" is so choice: it so well mirrors real life!
I have six more visits with Ms. Rituxan over the next six weeks.
NOW THE BAD NEWS
My White Blood Cell count (WBC)dropped dramatically following the first three-day round of Rituximab, Fludarabine, Cytoxan. I have five more of these regimens scheduled for three days every four weeks, for the next five months. HOWEVER, I will see if that is negotiable downward, depending on my progress. But I digress.
Normal WBC reference range is 3.5 - 10 (that's 3,500,000 - 10,000,000). Mine is 0.9, or 900,000. All other blood numbers are also down. You want the numbers? See below, or skip past them.
WBC 0.9 (3.5 - 10)
RBC 2.94 (3.8 - 5.8) (Red Blood Cells)
HGB 8.8 (11 - 16.5) (Hemoglobin)
HCT 26.8 (35 - 50) (Hemocrit)
PLT 138 (150 - 390) (Platelets)
There is more, but you get the picture. SO,
I have to get shots of Neupogen and take Cipro for the next five days.
NEUPOGEN® is a man-made form of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), which is made using the bacteria E coli. G-CSF is a substance naturally produced by the body. It stimulates the growth of neutrophils (nu-tro-fils), a type of white blood cell important in the body’s fight against infection.
CIPRO®(ciprofloxacin-hydrocholride) is a fluoroquinolone antibiotic and fights bacteria in the body. It's also a steroid (I feel stronger already!)
I will update after Monday's blood test.

More to come . . .