Had a rough night last night. Chills and sweats and what is described under Side Effects as “bone pain”.

I had finally gotten approved for the Neupogen and Procrit and injected them Wednesday night. Thursday I was feeling off all day, but Thursday night (last night) was unpleasant.

I guess I am stuck with the Neupogen because my White Blood Count had slipped to critical levels again after going almost two weeks without a shot. The Procrit, on the other hand, is supposed to help with stamina and yesterday I was more wiped out than usual, so I will see how it goes today, but if it caused the side effects, my initial mental response is it isn’t worth it.

Of course, maybe it is “poison in the beginning, nectar in the end” and I will change my tune. Or maybe taking the two shots together has some negative synergistic effect.

I have to take the Neupogen on Monday, after my blood draw, so the following week the test shows a trough level, but I can shift the Procrit to another day. That will be the next step to try.

It would have probably been a real self pity party if I had also taken the interferon shot, but they told me to hold off on that due to the low WBC. Assuming I get the go ahead to resume that next week (I take it on Wed.) it could be a whole side effects shebang. :-)

I got scheduled for a liver biopsy the first Monday in May. I will be rolling up on my one year anniversary of the liver transplant, so if the biopsy looks good they will be cutting back on the Prograft, my anti-rejection med. At least that will remove some side effects from the mix. The Prograft makes my glucose quite high, gives high blood pressure, and strains the kidneys; which are less perceivable side effects but in the long run more damaging.

On the plus side of the update, for all those of you who ask about how Marken is, he claims to have no lingering effects of donating 65% of his liver.

At his recent National Guard weekend, he ran 2 miles (3.3 K) in under 15 minutes. That was a dog of a time for him, and reflects his current sedentary lifestyle, but was still good enough for 4th place in his unit. He also did 40 pushups in a minute.

He hasn’t really gone out and pushed himself that hard physically yet, so it may be some top end performance is affected, but as far as normal life goes, he seems to have recovered with no ill effects.