1 Down, 51 To Go!

Well.........the weekend sure did go by fast. When I found out that this would be my first wknd. on Interferon- I decided to wipe the slate clean and make no plans, social or other. I scheduled a lazy weekend at home and planned on just catching up on some much needed sleep.

The worst of the side effects occurred on Friday night (see previous post) and carried on into Saturday, by Saturday evening I was starting to feel back to normal. I did add a new weapon to my ammunition of natural killers; a wise patient told me that Interferon would cause fatigue so I should start my mornings with a shot of wheat- grass. The benefits of wheat grass are endless; the chlorophyll component of wheat-grass is known to stimulate hemoglobin production resulting in more energy. The one drawback is the taste of wheat grass, bad times! Why does everything that is good for you have to taste so bad? I'm not sure if it was the wheat-grass that did the trick- but overall I'd say I had a good energy level these first couple of days on Interferon- although at times I do feel slightly fatigued.

Generally speaking the more doses of Interferon you ingest the more likely your level of fatigue will increase. You see, TKI's (Gleevec/Sprycel/Tasigna etc.) are awesome for the reason that they are targeted therapy's ie. they can go into your system and prevent the development of new harmful cells without harming the healthy cells. Interferon is not so forgiving, although cancer cells are attacked and destroyed- healthy cells are not spared, which is why patients on this protocol are ordered in to have blood work done every 2 weeks. A drop in blood counts is expected, how soon- varies patient to patient, if counts drop below the acceptable level the dose of Interferon is scaled back. Alas, I'm pretty optimistic- I've had a pretty good response to CML treatments with limited side effects thus far and also have age (and wheat-grass :P ) on my side.

Back to the rat race tomorrow..........