For Those Following the Medical Details…

For those of you who like to follow the actual medicine behind all of this, here’s what Round 2 looks like.

I’m receiving FLA-IDA, which stands for fludarabine, cytarabine (Ara-C), and idarubicin. It’s a five-day intensive chemotherapy regimen:

• Fludarabine: Days 1–5

• Cytarabine: Days 1–5, beginning about four hours after the fludarabine and running over four hours

• Idarubicin: Days 2–4

This is actually the same IV chemotherapy backbone I received during my first induction. The main difference is that during Round 1, I also took venetoclax (VEN) orally for two weeks, making that regimen FLA-IDA-VEN.

Because we aren’t doing the oral venetocloax this round they are increasing the dose of the cytarabine instead.

Today is Day 4 and tomorrow is the last day then I get to go home and wait.

The side effects are weird…I get small swollen painful areas around my peripheral blood vessels usually within the first few days, which is probably minor clotting issues, but annoyingly painful. Not a biggie

The first round there was no nausea, this round the nausea just started but we’re staying on top of the with zofran.

During the first round there were a period of days where every time I stood up my blood pressure tanked, so that prevented me from being mobile for a hot minute. Luckily I scored a walker and was on my feet again. That hasn’t happened this time yet, so we are hoping it won’t. But I also have a new golf cart to cart me around, so I’m covered.

Otherwise I would say everything else is mild. Some peelng of skin on my legs and feet, which is not a biggie. The hair loss…obviously. But all in all I think I’d say this is going as well as it could right now.

Round 2. Let’s get to <5%. ❤️