He got the full dose and had no reactions today, just very slight itchiness and a feeling of redness or heat in his face. These were minor enough that he didn't even mention them until the end. The nurses and our doctor were all so pleased with the way his body accepted this dose, and we were too.
We were surprised to learn that there is a total of 12 doses - not only will there be eight total one week infusions of Ofa, but there will be an additional 4 once a month doses after that. We also learned that they can bump up the rate of infusion next week, so it may not be an all day visit. I guess we'll see how he does then. Hopefully it will be another good day.
We didn't get a written report on the blood work, but we were told that things are about as they were last week. This surprised us a little, because Terry had been feeling very weak and achy, and had terrible headaches this week. We recognized these symptoms from low counts other times and expected low counts again - especially since this drug can cause low counts. With his counts already low I was concerned. I guess we don't have to worry too much about the counts any more than normal, so that's good.
It seems that weak, exhausted, and achy feelings accompanied by awful headaches may be caused by Ofa and not low blood counts. The doctor was encouraged by this, thinking that maybe that means it's working. That sounds great, but those painful feelings have occurred before, with that same hope and it's not really been working the way we wished. I guess we will take what we can get when we can get it. We are grateful to have things as good as they are - they could be worse.
(Image above is from HERE)
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