Day +10

Well, here I am at day +10.  The nausea is finally starting to subside (wo-hoo!).  I still have zero appetite so I've been forcing myself to eat.  So day +2 I ended up with a horrible nose bleed (the air in here is super filtered, and super dry) that lasted about 4 hours.  They finally ended up having someone from the surgical floor come down to pack my nose.  My platelets were only at 13 when it started so I ended up getting a blood transfusion and 2 bags of platelets.  The following morning they decided to give me platelets again before removing the packing (they wanted me over 60).  It was nice to be done with that whole ordeal.  They also decided to temporarily stop my Lovenox shot and they changed the platelet threshold to 30 instead of 10.  Day +3 was great because Chad and Dagen came up to visit, and I really needed that.  It seemed like forever since I'd seen them.  Day +4 was also great because they unhooked me from IV fluids... which makes it way easier to do laps.  LOL My days are pretty boring... I spend time reading, knitting, or watching tv.  Such an exciting life I lead these days, LOL.  So it had been a couple of days since the nose bleed incident, so they started my Lovenox again, and bumped the platelet threshold down to 10 again.  So what happened then... another nose bleed of course!  So day +6 I woke up at quarter to four in the morning with blood dripping onto my pillow.  Awesome.  This time it only lasted for a hour... then an hour after it stopped, it started again, and the same thing happened 3 times.  So needless to say since my platelets were only at 17 they had to give me some more.  I was getting a bit frustrated with the whole thing.  They changed all my parameters again and held off on the Lovenox for a couple of days until they thought I was done with the bleeding.  Hopefully I am... I'm using saline spray like it's my job, lol.  My parents both came up for the weekend, so that was nice.  They shared my boredom with me, LOL.  My WBC are slowly starting to go up (I started Neupogen shots on day +5) but I still don't have a neutrophil count.  And I developed an infection somehow and am on extra antibiotics for that.  Apparently it's pretty common... still sucks though.  I had to be put back on fluids yesterday because my blood pressure was really low (70/48), so that was a bummer.  But overall, things could be a lot worse.  My body seems to be cooperating slowly with making my new cells... but I'll take it, LOL.  I should hopefully be getting another visit from Chad and Dagen this week, and my dad is coming up for the weekend again.  So at least I have that to look forward to  :)

Day 0

Thought I'd give a re-cap of transplant day (to the best of my recollection anyway).  I had two different methods of removal for my stem cells, so they had to separate them out and give them back to me in two different periods.  I woke up that Saturday and made sure to have some breakfast (bad idea) and then at 10:00 they brought in this pretty cool looking machine that had 6 bags of my stem cells in one compartment (looked like they were in dry ice), and another compartment that held the warming bath for the bags of cells.  I also received a little bag of suckers with a Happy Birthday tag on them, lol.  Apparently when they are re-infusing the cells most people have a funny tickle in the back of their throat, and they've been told that the suckers can help.  Basically, one bag would be thawed, and when that bag was almost done infusing back into me they would get the next one ready to go.  I definitely felt the tickle, so I started on a sucker.... made it almost all the way though it before breakfast decided to make it's presence known again, lol.  And that was pretty much how my day went.  I had 6 bags done in the first session, and then they were going to give me a couple hours to rest before they finished.  I felt like hell, LOL.  I think I must have slept a little bit, because I don't really remember much besides talking to my dad a little bit and them coming back with the second batch.  The last 5 bags were much harder on me... most likely because of the preservative DMSO... I was on overload.  They were pumping everything they could get into me to help with nausea and vomiting, but all in all, I made it through!  The nurses seemed pretty surprised that I was as coherent as I was with the amount of ativan they had given me, LOL.  I pretty much just felt horrible and tried to go to sleep early.  Of course they also gave me Lasix to try to move the preservative though my body faster, in hopes that I would feel better.  And it's a good thing they warned me that when I did pee that I was expelling large quantities of dead red blood cells in my urine.  Good to know, would have freaked me the hell out if I hadn't been warned... bloody pee is not something I had first hand experience with, LOL.  Anyway, so now it's just a waiting game to see how long before my bone marrow starts to cooperate and repopulate my body with the good stuff.

I'm at day +2 now and not feeling to shabby.  I'm pretty tired but I'm still getting up and doing my laps like a good girl, LOL.  My appetite is pretty much non existent so I've been forcing myself to eat so I don't have to be fed through my IV.  My neutrophils are still about non existent and my platelets are down to around 13 as of this morning, so I won't be surprised if I need to have another transfusion done in the next day or two.  But I'm hanging in.  XO

Quick update

Well... here I am.  All done with chemo and getting ready to get my cells back tomorrow.  Wo-hoo!  The chemo wasn't as rough as I thought it was going to be (granted it was no picnic either) but I made it through.  I just had two days of "rest" for my body before I get my cells back.  Overall I feel pretty decent, unless you count the constant nausea.  Luckily they have a wide variety of meds to give me to treat it.  The real fun will be tomorrow around 10am, when they start infusing my stem cells back into me.  I have to have some done in the morning, and some done in the afternoon (since I collected two different ways).  I've already been told that I'm at rock bottom... I have a neutrophil count of zero right now, and I'm pretty tired.  So I'll be interested to see how this makes me feel, and how long it takes my body to start bouncing back.  So I'd appreciate some positive thoughts and good vibes for the process!  Thanks to everyone that has sent me a kind thought, word, card, book, or gift... I really appreciate everything.  Since tomorrow will be my re-birthday (day 0), I'll have something new to celebrate every year.  Above all though I wish I was home with my family!  XO

Fun times in 5 east

Guess it's time for another update...  I'm just finishing my second day at Roswell, so far, so good.  I checked in yesterday morning around 6:30am and made myself at home in my room on 5 east.  My chemo started at 9, and ran for 30 hours.  And made me feel like crap.  LOL, big surprise there.  I slept a lot during the afternoon when I wasn't getting sick.  Physical Therapy came by in the morning to let me know what I was supposed to be doing everyday as far as physical activity... they want me to leave in the same condition I came in, which makes sense.  My daily goals are to walk 1 mile (33 laps around the nurses stations), use the nu-step machine for 10 minutes, 25 step ups with each leg, 25 sit to stands, and I have to use my incentive spirometer regularly (which my mom being an RT loves to shove in my face, LOL).  I only managed to do 5 laps yesterday... I was just too tired and weak.  They were doing their best to try different meds to see what would work best for the nausea, and today my Dr suggested a cocktail that seems to have done the trick (ativan, haldol, benadryl).  I was able to eat dinner tonight with success!  I was also more active today cause I felt a little better after my morning transfusions.  I had to get a unit of blood, and potassium and magnesium.  I did 20 laps and all my step ups.  There's progress for ya!  :)  The chemo that I had this afternoon I will get for the next 3 days, and it's about a 2 hour infusion.  The downside to this one is it can damage my bladder, so I'm being hyper-hydrated and then given Lasix to help flush everything out of me.  On the plus side, my harvest sites are not nearly as sore tonight, and my bandages and steri strips have been removed.  Just sitting here missing everyone, hope I fly through this so I can be back home soon.  XO

Let the games begin!

Ok... so I'm all ready to go.  Came back up to Hope Lodge in Buffalo with my mom on Tuesday so I could be at Roswell bright and early Wed for blood work and my bone marrow harvest.  Things actually went pretty smoothly... everything was running on time and I didn't have to do much waiting around.  Got all my pre-op stuff done, signed all the necessary papers, got an IV started and was ready to roll.  They gave me some versed in my IV before going to the OR, so I was pretty happy on my way there, and I only remember the mask being on my face for about a minute before I was out cold.  Woke up in recovery and felt ok (I was full of dilaudid), definitely had a sore throat from being intubated.  But man oh man when the pain meds started to wear off... wooo.  I felt like I'd been hit in the hips with a sledgehammer.  They had to come back in and change my pressure dressings cause I was still bleeding a little bit, and they gave me more meds for pain.  I also had to have a blood transfusion done because they took almost 2 pints of blood and marrow out of me in the OR.  The transfusion took a couple of hours, so I just hung out with mom and tried to knit (very unsuccessfully I must say).  We got back to Hope Lodge around 3:30 and I just took it easy for the rest of the night... pain meds weren't helping much and I was pretty sick from the anesthesia.  Sorry if the pic grosses you out, I couldn't resist and had to have mom take a picture when they were changing the bandages.  Those are just steri strips covering the holes.

I went back to the BMT clinic this morning after getting more blood work (another 16 tubes) for my pre-admission work up, and at around 10:30 I went to get another central line placed for my chemo.  This one was a little smaller than the last one I had placed (for stem cell collection) so it wasn't as bad.  So I now have my new "jewelry" with 5 lumens instead of 2.  I had to go back up for one more blood draw after the line was placed because they had forgotten to check my kidney function.  After that mom and I were off to enjoy my last day of freedom for a while.  We went to Red Robin for lunch (neither of us had been there before) and gorged ourselves, LOL.  Came back to Hope Lodge and took a nap, which was probably a horrible idea, cause now I'm wide awake and I should be sleeping... but what can ya do.  Spent an hour or so in the kitchen talking to some of the great people that we've met while staying here and saying my goodbyes since I'll be leaving in the morning to get admitted.  I'm supposed to be there bright and early at 6:30 (oh joy!!) to get everything rolling.  Not looking forward to getting poison for breakfast, but it's part of the deal unfortunately.  Ready or not, here I go!  LOL