Good news and juicy marrow.

OK. Phase 1 is complete. My PET scan shows that the cancer has shrunk to the point where it is almost invisible. So, we are on to phase 2, which is really just preparation for phase 3.

Phase 2: Mobilization Chemo
Dr. Ahmed is giving me a nice long break from chemo. My last was on Dec 13,14, and 15. The mobilization chemo will not be until Jan 23,24,25. Why such a long wait? Because he wants my system to completely recover so that my marrow is "nice and juicy". I swear I'm not making that up. His words exactly.
The mobilization chemo is actually a combo of two chemos I had before. Cytoxan (which was the C in CHOP.) and VP-16 (which was the E in ICE. I know...not an E. Chemo is wacky that way.) After hearing that it was only two drugs and that I had had them both before I thought this wouldnt be so bad. I really need to stop jumping to conclusions. He told me I would have to take Mesnex again. (For those of you who don't recall I had to take this so that the I of ICE didn't eat through soft tissue. It is apparently very fond of the bladder.) But knowing that I wasn't getting the chemo that required me to use the mesnex last time I was a little confused. Turns out the mobilization chemo is going to give me the cytoxan and VP-16 in much higher doses than last time. It dawned on me at that moment that this is going to suck. Yup. This is going to absoulutly suck.
Anyway, the point of this chemo is to supress bone marrow, so that when I start to give myself the nupragin injections, it will spit out stem cells instead of red cells, white cells or platlets. Kind of like setting it back to default settings. So, I will give my self nupragin shots for 2 weeks or so, and having my blood tested every few days to see what my counts are like. The rest of the dates I give are best guess. It all depends on how I respond.
We figure that I will have a stem cell collection on Feb 6. Right before this I will have another catheter put in my neck. This time with an in and out line. It could take one to three days to harvest the number of stem cells that I will need later on. But once they are all collected, phase 2 will be complete.
Phase 3: which is the hospitalization and BEAM chemo will most likely happen on Feb 20th. They want to give me another break to make sure my body has recovered sufficently from the Mobilization Chemo. Then I will have 4 day of the BEAM which is (according to Dr. Ahmed) equivalent to 4 months of chemo. THis will destroy my immune system as well as some red blood cells and all the platlets. They will then give me back my stem cells and they will get to work on repairing the damage from the BEAM. And hopefully three weeks later, March 13, I will be out and working on phase 4: radiation.

So, that's pretty much that schedule. Katrina has reminded me to tell you all that even though this sounds horrible, this is good news. I am responding well to the chemo and can now move on the next step of Fred's destruction. Not to mention I get all these lovely breaks in between. So, start thinking of something I can do while on the break before I go into the hospital. (Jules- Brendan has a good idea. Vegas!) That's it for now.
-Elizabeth