Thursday, April 26th
STEMMIES GOING IN TODAY!! What an exciting day! It is a bit
like Thanksgiving dinner, you work hard and long to get this most beautiful
feast together, hours are spent prepping, baking pies, and peeling vegetables,
cutting, chopping, slicing, and carving. You set a pretty table with your best
china and your best silverware. You use the crystal glasses and put all the
food in your special serving bowls with the really big spoons. The centerpiece
of the table has to be perfect and appropriate for the event. Everyone’s been
invited and you gather around the table for a good prayer of thanks, sit down
to eat and.... it’s over in 20 minutes!
The first to come in of the transplant team is the man with
my frozen batch of stem cells. He is quiet and professional. I tell him I have
heard about him from others, that he is “the quiet one” and I am rewarded with
a smile. He gets busy thawing out my cells (runs them under the hot water in
the sink) and then the rest of the “team” comes in. My nurse to do the honors
today is Eric. He starts setting up the equipment on the IV pole for the
infusion to begin. Dr. Burt, Amy and Dr. Hahn join the crowd and the process
begins! Amy stayed with me the whole time, but the others ran in and out after
the cells finished running in to me; only took about 25 minutes. They have to monitor
me pretty closely, taking vitals every 15 minutes. I did very well through it
all and had no issues at all.
Dr. Han, Dr. Burt, Amy (RN) & me after my cells were administered
It was a very emotional day, in a good way. I got
good mail, a book about sisters from my sister that she added a bunch of
pictures of the two of us and our Mom and her sisters to the pages that just
had me bawling my eyes out. I also got a great gift from my friend Shelley from
Arizona that was befitting of the day. She sent me 3 stretchy headbands made of
beads to dress up my head, they are so cute. With this present, she sent a card
that touched my heart. It was a picture of a beautiful white long-haired cat
with a tall crystal crown on its head. It represents to me being a princess and
daughter of the King!
I was hungry after the transplant; even though I thought I
would need a nap, I didn’t. I laid there for a while trying to fall asleep but
that didn’t happen, so I said I’ll have some turkey and cheese on 1 leaf of
lettuce (chuckle) and some chocolate ice cream and ginger ale for burps. And, by
the way, the chemo gas is pew…strong and not just air; so you need to protect
your panties folks! They do have underwear liners that are of good size (after
all it is a Women’s Hospital for having babies) that will take care of it. Gonna go for a walk now…later.
Chemo nightmares!! Not a pleasant
experience. I was told about the nightmares ahead of time but didn’t really
think about them before they happened. The good part about them was I played
the “hero” in my dreams! I had to save the world from a fire that came up from
the pit of the earth. I actually “dug” myself into the middle of the fire to
bring up dry earth to put it out. Yeah, me! In the next one, I saved another
patient who checked himself out of the hospital, pulled out his picc line and
was driving away from the hospital. He was stopped by a cop and I came along
just in time to keep him from either being arrested or bleeding out! I got him
back into the ER just in the nick of time!
There was a 3rd dream, but I don’t remember that one, but I’m
sure I saved more lives! I’m so healthy with all my new stem cells in me that I
can take on the world!! However, when I woke also had the shakes and diarrhea
and a sore bottom to go along with it. Saving the world is hard work!
Friday, April 27th
I woke up this morning with a tummy ache, nothing major but
just not feeling too good. Ate my breakfast, vanilla yogurt and a not much
else. Had to take the usual bunch of pills (about 6 of them) and uh oh, here it
comes! Caught the first little bit in my hands and fortunately my nurse,
Stephanie, was in the room! She ran to the bathroom to get the pretty pink tub
for me to upchuck in! There went all my pills in round two! She ran back and
forth with about 3 different tubs for me because when you upchuck yogurt, the
smell is enough to make you upchuck more! She brought me a wet washcloth too to
clean up several times between vomiting, bless her heart. She hustled so quick
back and forth between me and the bathroom to throw out the vomit and wash out
the tub and get me a clean one for the next round, it was amazing! She would
have won a marathon! She did in my book!! I haven’t thrown up for many years,
since my girlfriend Tanya and I had food poisoning. I don’t have to remind
myself it isn’t pleasant.
Stephanie
My girlfriend Tanya
After that I was relieved to not have to take my pills again
until a later time and I got some Zophran thru my picc line and it was my
friend from then on whenever I started to feel nauseous, I would get some.
Today I was introduced, by recommendation of my nurse, to Ensure! What a good
thing this was, I loved it and over lots of ice it is just delicious! Gives you
a good amount of protein and helps you have more energy since you don’t feel
much like eating at this point. It almost tastes like a treat; like pudding in
liquid form. Delicious!
more later....
