Marian Update
Marian had a checkup this Thursday. After eight weeks of Rituxan and the first nine weeks of CAL-101, Marian's white count is down to 46.2 and her platelets are up to 262. When she decided to proceed with treatment, her WBC was 53.8 and her platelets were 92. As expected, her WBC went as high as 74.7 before it improved. This is typical of CAL-101. The lymph nodes respond first and then the blood. This was great for John, since all of his disease seemed to "hang out" in his nodes. Marian has had more progression in her blood and bone marrow. But she did have some enlarged nodes which responded immediately.
I expect that Marian will have gradual improvement with every successive checkup now. But I like to update my blog on how she's doing for other patients considering CAL-101 and also for friends who are wondering. She isn't suffering any side effects or toxicity. She feels well. She does notice that she is a lot more tired lately. My reaction is usually, "You're 78 years old. Of course you're tired." But in this week's blood work, her blood calcium level was a little high. And I've done some reading on that this morning. The most common cause of high blood calcium levels is hyperparathyroidism. It could be related to treatment, but she said she had that show up one other time in a regular blood test (which makes me think it is not related to treatment). And because she's been telling me she's so tired and she has also been mentioning forgetfulness (also a symptom), I think she needs to see her general physician and have her parathyroid checked.
She has had a cough for over two months (no fever) and I made her promise that she would go see her general physican before Christmas. So maybe she can ask him to check the parathyroid also. She's had recent CT scans, so I know there isn't a problem with her lungs. But I don't think it's a good idea to ignore something that has hung on for that long and not gotten better. So I intend to call and nag her a bit if she doesn't keep her promise.
I'm not worried. I just want to get to the bottom of it so we can fix the problem, whatever it is.
I expect that Marian will have gradual improvement with every successive checkup now. But I like to update my blog on how she's doing for other patients considering CAL-101 and also for friends who are wondering. She isn't suffering any side effects or toxicity. She feels well. She does notice that she is a lot more tired lately. My reaction is usually, "You're 78 years old. Of course you're tired." But in this week's blood work, her blood calcium level was a little high. And I've done some reading on that this morning. The most common cause of high blood calcium levels is hyperparathyroidism. It could be related to treatment, but she said she had that show up one other time in a regular blood test (which makes me think it is not related to treatment). And because she's been telling me she's so tired and she has also been mentioning forgetfulness (also a symptom), I think she needs to see her general physician and have her parathyroid checked.
She has had a cough for over two months (no fever) and I made her promise that she would go see her general physican before Christmas. So maybe she can ask him to check the parathyroid also. She's had recent CT scans, so I know there isn't a problem with her lungs. But I don't think it's a good idea to ignore something that has hung on for that long and not gotten better. So I intend to call and nag her a bit if she doesn't keep her promise.
I'm not worried. I just want to get to the bottom of it so we can fix the problem, whatever it is.
Comments