July 23, 2009

No thinking today!

But the thought did occur to me, as I called to have three prescriptions renewed today, that I have not really provided an update as to where I stand with the remaining prescriptions that I have left. Over these past few months I've provided insight as to the degree of difficulty involved to obtain them but that's about it. Hopefully it won't be too boring. At a minimum, it will be informative

So here goes...

I am required to take an over the counter vitamin pill everyday as long as it contains folic acid. This I will have to take until the end of the 12 month period from the date of my bone marrow transplant(2/17/10)

I take acyclovir 3 times a day to prevent shingles and the chicken pox. That's right, the chicken pox! It seems that it's a big concern. Enough so that I will have to get my "baby shots" all over again this coming February. I will take the acyclovir until 2/17/10.

I take bactrim once a day to prevent pneumonia. This replaces the mepron suspension that I had been taking. The pill is a lot more convenient. And a lot cheaper! The mepron suspension is over $1200/month while the bactrim is $7. This I will take until 2/17/10 as well.

I take lipitor once a day for high cholesterol. The high cholesterol is a side effect of the immuno-suppressants so I am not sure how long I will be taking this.

I take 2 immuno-suppressants - prograph and rapamune.

I am currently ramping down on the prograph taking 1 mg twice a day at least until the end of July. If I encounter no problems during that time period(and I haven't) the dosage will be dropped to .5mg twice a day during the month of August and then(God willing) stopped altogether at the end of the month.

The rapamune dosage is 2mg once a day. This will remain so during August but should be cut to 1 mg during September and then stopped altogether at the end of the month. Some time thereafter, I would assume, the lipitor should be cut out as well as I will no longer be taking the imuno-suppressants.

For someone who never even took an aspirin, this is quite a load to handle. But, truthfully, it has become routine. It's a whale of a lot better than the 30+ pills a day that they were giving me in the hospital and it's a lot less than the 12 medications that I took when I first got home.

However, I am looking forward to getting back to the number of medications that I took before all this started which was none! The initial major goal was to try to get me off the immuno-suppressants by February(if possible). This looks like it will be done by October! So I think that I have a good chance to get back to where I want to be. It's all in God's hands.

I hope that you are all still awake...

Bob