Treatment round one

Thank you everyone for all your prayers and support as I began formal treatment for my M S. On Sunday prior to the treatment, and on Monday too, my phone was blowing up with texts, emails and calls of support. It was so encouraging. 

This first round was five days long. All five days had a four-hour infusion of the drug, followed by a two hour monitoring period to be sure I was okay. This drug is a form of chemotherapy so that tells you how tough it can be on your body. The first three days also included a one hour steroid drip prior to the infusion to mitigate the side effects. 

The first day was the longest... right about 11 hours. It took them a long time to get us started because they had to do blood work, have a visit with the doctor, and evaluate me to be sure I was healthy enough to get the drug. It was a bit stressful that morning because I had some infection levels that were raised and they were concerned that may get real sick if they went ahead with the infusion. However, thankfully the doctor overruled and said I was okay to go so we finally got started that day at about 11:45.

This is a picture of my infusion room. I had the seat by the window, and I was joined by another lady who received the same drug. We were stuck together for the whole week... with no TV! We couldn't leave the room once the infusion started each day. Luckily we got a long and it was fine. 

Here I am when Dave came to visit. I was grateful for visitors... especially when they brought me treats!

The book I finished... it was great and very insightful

All done!

Overall it went very well. It was hard physically to be in one room and sitting down all day for five days, and be away from Natalie. The first three days I felt fine because of the steriods, but as soon as I stopped receiving those, I began to have fevers, rash and feel very tired. Not the end of the world but still pretty noticeable. I am still having these effects at home now.

I was on a ward where there were lots of trauma vicitims and some very incapacitated elderly people. Being around them all week made me deeply grateful for my health and all the freedoms I enjoy as a relatively healthy person. Thank you Lord.

So now we are just in a waiting mode. It is our prayer that this treatment will give me the best possible outcome, which is no more relapses and no more disease progression. But we won't really know for a long time. I do have to go back and have another three-day infusion this time next year, along with monthly blood tests for the next five. But that is all a small price to pay for a body that functions well!

Cheers!
( I am not including the name of the drug on this post because I don't want people to search for the drug on the internet and come across my blog. If you want to know more, I am happy to email you about that. I just don't want to become an online platform for discussion of MS treatments)