Autologous Blood Injection Knee
This chemotherapy regimen carries the name Arkansas Treatment because the doctor who developed it lives and practices in Arkansas.When the author asked the question, "Why two transplants?" the answer given was that some of the 自體脂肪豐頰 cancer cells hide and are difficult to find. So if the first transplant works well, the second should take care of any and all remaining cancerous cells. When they collected the stem cells, their goal was to collect 10 million. They return about 5 million to the patient during each transplant.)The first few days of this cycle were the easiest. Once again, the author moved into a hotel room within a mile of the cancer clinic for the duration of this procedure. The first two mornings at the clinic were the days they administered the "high dose" drug. This particular drug is one that directly attacks and kills all cancer cells. Most of the other drugs used in earlier cycles of chemo worked in indirect ways to attack the cancer. This drug has been around for years and it goes directly after the cancer cells.Actually, this drug has a broader effect than just attacking cancer cells. It attacks all fast-reproducing cells in the body which includes, of course, the cancerous cells, but also includes hair follicles, skin, and many good blood cells. They call it a "high dose" step because they give the patient sufficient drug to kill all targets. Some of this drug was administered Monday morning, and the rest was administered Tuesday morning. Both were relaxed days. The infusions didn't take very long and the author was quickly released to return to his hotel room. On Wednesday, they infused a bag of saline, but nothing else. That, too went quickly, and the author was once again sent back to his hotel room.Thursday was designated day "0" because it was the day the stem cells were reinfused into his body. They described this day as the "first day" of the author's "new life." The stem cell infusion went easily and quickly, as well. And once again, the author returned to his hotel room. Each of the following days called for the author to return to the clinic to have his blood counts checked. Any minerals needed in the blood could be infused, but generally, most of those days were short stops at the clinic.
The reasoning behind the transplant procedure appears to be this: Since they collected the patient's stem cells at an earlier date and they were safely in storage, the high dose drug could not affect them in any way. So they conveniently missed the effects of the high dose meds. When they were once again returned to the patient on the Thursday of that week, the high dose drug in the patient's system was no longer effective, so it could not cause any harm to the newly infused stem cells. Following reinfusion of the stem cells, all that was left to do was wait. The staff explained that it would take 9 to 11 days for the stem cells to locate properly and to begin working again. At that point, blood counts would once again begin to rise.The author remembers that following the reinfusion of his stem cells, he felt fine.
