It has been quite the ride. Turns out my intestines were severely impacted with weeks of crap from the painkillers I had been receiving. And my pain was increasing until I ended up on Dilaudid drip. I could not eat for a few days because of excessive bloating and nausea Even trying to swallow oral meds made me heave.
Opiates bind with receptors in the intestines and everything stops. After trying several types of laxative, the one that got the ball rolling is an injection that prevents the opiates from binding to the receptors. Kinda like pathway inhibitors.
However at least it prepared me for the nausea to come from the high dose IL-2, starting tomorrow.
The TIL infusion gave me extreme shivers which required wrapping me in warm blankets like a South Park character, cranking the heat in the room, and 25ml of Demerol. This n spite of a yield of only 15 billion cells, ten times less than I hoped for.
My temperature spiked to 102, but all in all a walk in the park compared to the days of not eating and the from the extreme bloating.
The last two days my appetite returned and I have been mercilessly cracking jokes with the nurses. Some make better victims than others. Heh, heh, heh.
Tomorrow is the main event. I will try and keep posting.
– Paul
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