Adcetris Day-7, Cycle 1

My Back ache is the centre of my world right now, It's a gnawing dull ache that makes me feel ill it's so bad. It got me out of bed way too early, I'd have liked to have stayed there all morning but I couldn't find any position laying down that relieved the pain, so I got up.

I've phoned my GP and booked to see him this afternoon. I have a list of about eight things to discuss with him. Ranging from the back pain, to my ankle injury that's preventing me from exercising, and a couple of weird ones in between, like the "thing" on my elbow that won't heal.  (I call it a "thing" because it's not a sore, it's not an ulcer... it's just this 4mm hole that won't heal over).

I had another look at the list of Adcetris side effects last night. I think I can tick quite a few of them.
I think it's weird that I'm still feeling like crap seven days out. With previous chemo I'm usually feeling better by about now.

Here's the list of common side effects, I've highlighted the ones I currently have in green and the ones I don't in Red. (My itch is greatly reduced compared to what it has been)

Back pain, constipation, cough, diarrhea, dizziness, dry skin, hair loss, Itch, headache, joint pain, loss of appetite, mild muscle pain or spasms, mild sore throat or mouth pain, mild weight loss, night sweats, nausea, stomach pain, tiredness, trouble sleeping, vomiting.

Now one really odd thing is that my cough is almost completely gone. To be fair though I haven't exerted myself today and that will almost always provoke a cough. However to get this far into the day without a single cough is unheard of in the last couple of years.

I don't want to jinx myself but this does look promising for an eventual reduction in prednisone and it also may show that my lung damage has not left me with a permanent cough. My quality of life will be much improved if and when I can beat this Lymphoma. Of course what it does mean is that a lot of what is showing in my lungs on the chest x-rays and CT is in fact lymphoma. This was always a bit of an unknown area, even the CT radiographer had no idea. The fact that I can have such an improvement in just seven days is promising.

I'll update once I've seen the GP this afternoon.  ...oooh  just noticed my pain killers have kicked in.. almost no back pain!  :)