Angie & Jim

First Darzalex Infusionby Angie

Yesterday, we spent five hours at the Stanford Infusion Center so I could receive my first Darzalex Faspro infusion. It is a targeted monoclonal antibody that they hope will manipulate my bone marrow to eliminate some of the problematic antibodies that make it hard for me to get a transplant match…I think. There was a lot of information to process. This is just a few steps past experimental for someone with my condition; it’s usually used for patients with multiple myeloma.

It’s actually a slow-push subcutaneous injection, meaning they put a sort of mini IV into my little belly folds and push the medicine slowly over about 5 minutes. Then I have to stay in the room to be observed; this first time they required 4 hours of observation, but I’ll be doing this every week and the future appointments will only need one hour of observation.

There are a lot of possible allergic reactions and side effects, both from the Darzalex itself and from the pre- and post-treatment medicines they have to give me, but luckily things went really well and we’re pretty confident that we can move forward with this. Really well with regards to how I tolerated the treatment; we won’t know for another month or more if it will make a difference for me. If it improves my chances of getting a match even a little, it should be worth it.