A Painful Cure With Positive Results!

Stomach Problems

I have mentioned throughout this blog that Rene has not been able to eat solid foods without experiencing cramps. This morning was no different, she had a bad night again at the hospital. She ate eggs with toast for breakfast and chicken salad on Friday. That evening the cramps started again and therefore she was facing the same situation this morning that she had last Monday.

Her initial reaction was not to take her Rituxan treatment today because of a fear of cramps again (more on this later!). After conversations with the doctor, he agree to postpone this for a day. Afterwards, we discussed this more and I pointed out, what other alternatives did she have for curing these tumors within her body? The doctor stated that the tumors were in her stomach and they are impacting her ability to digest food and therefore will continue to cause her pain! She agreed to have her treatment and deal with any pain during the process which takes a minimum of 6 hours via her post.

Good Outcome

As predicted, Rene did suffer cramps within an hour of her treatment and this was addressed by administrating morphine and adjusting the amount of Rituxan flow. This is a good thing because a small percentage of individuals experience immediate pain because the cancerous cells are being destroyed by the Rituxan. It is equally important to know that this type of chemotherapy treatment does not impact healthy cells in the body. In the future, pain medicines will be administered first. It took about 20 minutes for the morphine to take affect and she is now experiencing no pain or nausea. This is the only chemo treatment that can be done as outpatient because it will not destroy healthy cells.