First Trip to the NIH

Wednesday, June 13, 2012 11:00 AM 1st floor: Admissions Complete Registration and Update contact information Review and sign consent w/ Susan Soto

To follow 1st floor: Phlebotomy: Blood draw - (you do not need to be fasting)

To follow 1st floor, Heart Station EKG 1:00 PM 7th floor: Outpatient CLL clinic, OP7 Meet with our CLL team Patients are seen on a “first come, first served” basis Thursday, June 14, 2012 4:00 AM Nothing to eat or drink after 4AM in preparation for your CT scan. You may take medication with sips of water.

8:00 AM 1st floor, Radiology for CT scan. Your scan is actually scheduled for 9AM, but you must be there 1 hour prior to drink the oral contrast. You may eat after the CT scan 10:00 AM 3rd floor, Procedure Unit, 3SW-N for a non-sedation bone marrow biopsy.

This was my original schedule for last week’s NIH appointments. I expected to follow it to the letter, then return home and await a call as to whether I’d been accepted into the clinical trial. I was overjoyed to be told on the first day that I was in the trial, and that treatment would begin this very month! The CT scan was cancelled because I’d had one within 3 months of starting the trial, leaving only the bone marrow biopsy to worry about. And worry I did. To my infinite relief, I discovered that Dr. Farooqui really knows how to do a BMB, but unfortunately, that my local oncologist doesn’t. No wonder I’d been traumatized, Dr. Z. only numbed the skin, while Dr. Farooqui numbed the skin, then a deeper layer, and then the bone. There’s a night and day difference between their techniques, and Dr. Farooqui gets my vote for the best BMB experience of all time.

Brianna and I also had time for several dining adventures. A celebratory dinner of Indian food on Wednesday, Korean food on Thursday, and China’s famed dim sum on Friday. I was a little nervous about big city transportation, but Brianna is very good at figuring out what bus or metro to take to reach our desired destinations. We’ll be enjoying this week at home, and then head out again next week for a few more tests, and on Thursday the 28th, I will begin the trial. My guardian angels have been busy in my behalf, amazing me at how smoothly everything is working out.