Done! I am done! It seemed like the wait to get my first shot in this trial was endless, but the 6 months of actual treatment has flown by.
Done! I am done! It seemed like the wait to get my first shot in this trial was endless, but the 6 months of actual treatment has flown by.
Today I got my last shot, and went into the trial record books as a success, or at least not a failure<g> It's only been the last couple of shots that had a reaction before I left the hospital (I have to stay for the first hour) Today, as expected, my skin reaction was much more pronounced. If things go as expected I'll have my worst swelling so far, and I''ve been warned to watch for systemic reactions. But I am just a few blocks from the hospital, so I am not too concerned about that..only about the swelling to come. I am icing my thigh and have cozy clothes and no demands.
We are staying overnight here, then driving back to las vegas tomorrow and I don't have to fly again till monday, so hopefully by then the swelling will be down.
We've made quite the trip out of this LAST trip down here. We flew into Las Vegas to have a couple of nights of Hannukah with bob's dad ( I need to update the off topic board on Joe!) then drove down here on tuesday. This last visit included a skin test, which we did on Wednesday morning. This is a simple thing, a tiny injection just under the skin on the arm. then they mark it and 'read' it 48 hours later. So we did that and had all afternoon Wednesday and all day Thursday to hang out at the beach! We are staying on the Balboa Penninsula, and we've had a dandy time escaping the 2 feet of sloggy, refrozen snow in Spokane.
Along with the skin test on Wed., they drew blood. About 3 or 4 vials in my blood just stopped flowing, and so I got jabbed a few more times before they had success getting a vein for the OTHER 4 vials. yikes!
Today was my last visit to the Hoag. The rest of my followup will be done via phone calls and emails. And my doc will be sharing scan reports and labs on a certain schedule..every 6 months I think. My next scans aren't scheduled till March, unless my local Oncologist decides to move them up to January. I see him next week.
I will keep my fingers crossed that this vaccine has been effective for me. I remained NED a long time (11 months) while my cell line was growing, so I'll never know, if I stay NED, if it is because of the vaccine, or if I would have stayed NED anyway. But I am constantly reminding myself that it's been over 2 yrs now since I moved to stage IV, and 19 months now that I've been NED. It's a fabulous thing to be thankful for.
Dian
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