Erika's Treatment Update -- Week 48

Today I was supposed to receive my 3rd round of the new chemo that we have been trying out. Unfortunately, as soon as my oncologist took at look at my rash it was immediately decided that I would not be having treatment. My rash has gotten much worse since I was seen on Monday. It's now all over my body including some spots on my stomach, face, and hands. My oncologist was very concerned and had the head dermatologist at Stanford take a look at me right away. The dermatologist decided that it was necessary to do a skin biopsy to do a proper diagnosis. The skin biopsies rarely conclude anything, however they can rule out some serious things so that is why they needed to do one. She feels that my rash is either GVHD (graft vs host disease), a viral infection, or a drug interaction. It's highly unlikely that it's the later two, because I haven't taken any new medications and when I had a rash a few months back they thought that was viral and it's unlikely to get two viral infections that close to each other. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's not GVHD however, cause that would mean I would have to start taking prednisone again as well as immunosuppressants. I was the most miserable I have ever been when I was on immunosuppressants after my second transplant. The biopsy was done on my upper arm with plenty of local anesthesia so it wasn't painful and I received all kinds of creams and oral drugs to alleviate the itching. I should hopefully get some preliminary results of the biopsy by next Monday. Until then, I probably won't be able to get chemo which I'm very disappointed about. This is now two times in a row that it has been postponed. My fevers have also gotten worse since the new rash started and tonight I had an episode of rigors followed by several hours of feeling extremely cold with chills. I'm so grateful that we had the opportunity to get away for the weekend before all these complications started.

My oncologist is supposed to contact me tomorrow to determine when we will reschedule chemo. I will update my blog as I get more news about my biopsy.