Rituxan Spells Relief After First Treatment!

Wow, what a roller coaster of a day!! All is fabulous now, but it's been a looooonnnnggg day. We didn't get home until 9:45pm, which is why we're not calling anyone, particularly folks on the east coast. Graham woke up this morning feeling really horrible because his spleen was just giving him such pain. We arrived at Stanford right on time at 8:30am, expecting to receive some benedryl, then a form of prednisone, and then 200 ml of rituxan. The steroids right away relieved Graham's pain. Yay! At this point, we thought we'd be out of there in about 4 hours.

The way too exciting part came when he got the Rituxan. We were warned that most everybody has an allergic reaction, and as soon as one starts to feel cold or hot or itchy, one should alert the nurse right away. Well, they started the IV drip and within the first 15 minutes, Graham reacted, so they gave him some more benedryl. Then they started the drip again.

And shortly thereafter, Graham started to sleep because of all the benedryl. Because he was snoozing he didn't notice that he was getting cold, and it was only when he was really really cold that he woke up. We rang the nurse, but within 20 seconds he started getting what they called "rigors". His neck looked like it had a wild, beating heart in it. And then his teeth started chattering, and then his hands, and then his whole body was shaking like in an episode of ER.

At that point, every nurse in the unit came rushing in. They had expected the first episode, and had the medicine all ready to give to him, but the second reaction was more rare apparently, and it took about 10 minutes for them to get the demerol. He wasn't in any danger, because they stopped the drip right away, but it was unsettling, to say the least, to see him shaking so badly for what felt like forever.

After about 20 minutes (10 minutes after he was given the demerol), he stopped shaking and shivering. After a couple hours of deliberating, the doctors decided to start him back on the Rituxan, but at a much slower drip, 20 ml/per hour. No more problems arose with that rate of drip. But we were there until 9:15pm. We closed down the joint!

Here's Graham "chillin":


So now we're home, and Graham is actually feeling fantastic. :-) Tomorrow we go back at 8am. He needs to get 500 ml more of Rituxan in his system and then the CHOP (chemo). Hopefully, now that his body is accustomed to the Rituxan they can put it in faster with no problems. But no doubt we'll be there until 9pm closing time again. So we'll probably not be able to call anyone until Saturday, since cell phone reception in the hospital is nil.

That's the scoop! Hope all is well in your world and that everyone is busy anticipating some yummy matzoh ball soup. And for the lucky folks in Durham - Mom's fantastic charoseths. Happy Passover in case I don't speak with you before Saturday night!!!!!!!

Hugs, Lee