Velcade Starts Monday

I had my appointment at the hospital today. The usual blood test were taken, I call it a blood test; however the way my blood is at the moment I might as well call it a red sludge test. My paraprotein has climbed again and my platelets are 17. If you remember If it went below 22 I was susceptible to spontaneous bleeding!

The doctor went through all the usual things and I’m starting the Velcade on Monday. As my platelets are low I’m going to have a bag of platelets and some blood, as I said my blood at the moment isn’t working well at all and is more like sludge. With my platelets being very low he suggested I don’t do anything dangerous over the weekend like bungee jumping… and I was going to go out busking juggling my knives this weekend as well. It was a bit worrying when he said – ‘ as your platelets are 17 you should be ok till Monday’. Errrr what if I’m not ok till Monday! They are getting the platelets ready, just in case I don’t make it till Monday, e.g. I chop my finger off.

It will be all day at the hospital on Monday as it will take a while for everything to get sorted.

Oh and now that I am having my treatment again, they have renewed my car parking card – woo hoo free parking again rather than £2.40 a time, it soon mounts up.

I will have to go to the hospital on a Monday and Thursday plus other appointments, such as when I see the doctor. It will be two weeks of Velcade, then a week off, normally see the doc that week and then repeat for as many cycles as needs be.

I will also be having the Dexamethasone (steroids) that I’ve had before. Not sure what dose yet, so I may be up and down like last time. One day happy and the next day in tears.

Hopefully though I should be able to get to grips with how the treatment effects me and work around it, with the end result of it making me at least feel better for a while.