{"id":4635,"date":"2013-05-17T14:22:10","date_gmt":"2013-05-17T14:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mcrc4.com\/?p=4635"},"modified":"2013-09-28T10:14:33","modified_gmt":"2013-09-28T10:14:33","slug":"8-6m-dendritic-cells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcrc4.com\/?p=4635","title":{"rendered":"8.6M Dendritic Cells"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20130517-162037.jpg\"<\/a>Today was a very busy day in Duderstadt. Its the day when the past week’s immunotherapies all came together. <\/p>\n

The day started with an IL-2 (Interleukin 2) injection. IL-2 is a cytokine signalling molecule, and its purpose is to further stimulate leucocytes. IL-2 is necessary for growth, proliferation and differentiation of T cells to become ‘effector’ cells. IL-2 is normally produced by T cells during an immune response, but my immune system needs the helping hand.<\/p>\n

One hour of local hyperthermia was next on the menu, while getting a Zometa IV (Note: read previous post for description of Zometa and the logic behind using it.) Today they really cranked up the heat and for the first time this week I actually felt the internal warmth. Made me feel like I did not get value for money during the previous three hyperthermia treatments, but that is just the way they do it. Gradual escalation of temperature.<\/p>\n

Another shot of Newcastle Disease Virus, and I was almost done.<\/p>\n

After lunch I started feeling unusually tired and I almost fell asleep and missed the most important part of this week’s therapy. The dendritic cell vaccine. <\/p>\n

Primed dendritic cells activate all the stimulated lymphocytes and gamma delta t-cells. Basically the dendritic cells on their own do very little, they however teach other effector cells to seek out and destroy any cell infected with the NDV virus.<\/p>\n

So finally, as the cherry on top, I got an intramuscular injection containing 8.6 million dendritic cells. Now its time for me to rest and let the immune system take over. Fingers crossed.<\/p>\n

As a side note, the only downer to the day was my still infected port. Last night I made the decision to lance the port scar using a syringe needle. Bucket load of blood and puss oozed out, and I tried to get out as much as I could. It was just like squeezing a golf ball sized pimple really. A Pretty graphic description, but not far from the truth. Its still not good, but it felt less swollen in the morning and looks a little better now. I have 2 more days of antibiotics left, and that will determine whether the port comes out on Monday. Still, I don’t give up easily and am already hatching a plan B. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today was a very busy day in Duderstadt. Its the day when the past week’s immunotherapies all came together. The day started with an IL-2 (Interleukin 2) injection. IL-2 is a cytokine signalling molecule, and its purpose is to further … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dendritic-cell-vaccine","category-my-journey","category-treatments"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcrc4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcrc4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcrc4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcrc4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcrc4.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4635"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcrc4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4782,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcrc4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4635\/revisions\/4782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcrc4.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcrc4.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcrc4.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}