Lymph Journal #6

1/11/2012

I woke this morning (a fairly productive sleep night) with two main thoughts.  One was the prayer that the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart would be acceptable unto my God.  I’m not sure where this thought is going to take me yet – we’ll have to see.  The second thought was that the time has arrived to begin the “battle” in earnest.  I am so pleased by all who are standing with us in this battle as they ask for great but perfectly doable things of God.

Here’s the more clinical aspects of the day.  Added to the following was some kind of antihistamine that’s had me in rather a chemical haze. I spent about seven hours at the clinic with this.

Rituximab 

Rituximab belongs to a group of drugs called monoclonal antibodies. These are used to try to destroy some types of cancer cells while causing little harm to normal cells. They are designed to recognise certain proteins that are found on the surface of some cancer cells. The monoclonal antibody recognises the protein and locks onto it like a key in a lock. This then triggers the body’s immune system to attack the cancer cells and can sometimes cause the cells to destroy themselves.

Rituximab is used to treat several different types of B-cell lymphoma. It locks onto a protein called CD20, which is found on the surface of one of the main types of normal white blood cells (B-cell lymphocytes). It is also present on the surface of most of the abnormal B-cell lymphocytes that occur in some types of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Rituximab acts by attacking both abnormal (malignant) and normal B-cell lymphocytes. The body can quickly replace any normal white blood cells that are damaged.

http://www.macmillan.org.uk/Cancerinformation/Cancertreatment/Treatmenttypes/Chemotherapy/Combinationregimen/R-CHOP.aspx

Tomorrow the actual more toxic chemo begins with a 2-3 hour session.

Like I said there was (and remains – maybe why this doesn’t make perfect sense) a certain chemical sleepiness brought on by some of the additional medicine(s).  The first few hours I pretty much slept but then sleep was overcome by the marmalade lady.

One of the band of chemo brothers and sisters in the room today really held the floor for quite a while.  She was knitting constantly, although the object in question never seemed to grow, and had a very projecting, deep, and flat voice – the sort of voice that can fill a room – and did it ever! She was speaking (in German, of course) about marmalade (read this word with no silent vowels and you’ll come closer to the German pronunciation).  For close to an hour she held court on the nuanced differences between Brombeeren marmalade versus Sauerbrombeeren marmalade versus Sauerkirschen marmalade – I felt like I was stuck in a sound loop for a high school German class and the one word we should know by the end of the lesson was marmalade.

Well I finally fired up the iPod and listened to the David Crowder Bands new and last release Give us Rest.  Appropriate to the day were many of the pieces on the album – thank you for the gift Ida-Mae & Jim.

I wish I could offer something more profound for the lessons of the day but I am still a bit foggy.  Thanks all for the encouragements received – they are moving and welcome.