Day -3

Still here and recovered from the first round of ATG!

I meant to post a second edition yesterday after my chemo dance with ATG. Alas, ATG knocked me out with chills, fever, headache, and dizziness. It would have been better if I could have taken tylenol, but that was off limits cuz of the busulfex.
This is what I understand is happening with my white blood cells, especially T-Cells. T-Cells are the dudes that really go out to destroy foreign particles in the body. We have to get them down in order for them not to attack incoming stem cells wednesday. over the past 4 days, the busulfex has essentially put the whammy on new T-Cell production. IE: there are no re-enforcements for the T-Cells. However, the busulfex only stops new production of T-Cells, therefore any T-Cells hanging around before the busulfex must be now nuked. So they use this stuff called ATG. This are Antithymocyte Globulin Rabbit antibodies. Harmless little rabbit antibodies. However, when they are injected into the patients system, they alarm the T-Cells to the max. This is what the T-Cells do: Eat the antibodies, release cytokines, hope for re-enforcements. Eating the antibodies is good. Dont need them, but they are really not a harm anyway. Releasing Cytokines will heat things up causing fever, sometimes killing the foreign particles if they are heat-sensitive. There are no T-Cell re-enforcements, they all went home. After shooting their wad on the rabbit antibodies, the T-Cells die. So, the whole little staged fight is very well orchestrated to be deadly for the poor little rabbit antibodies and the T-Cells. For the chemo recipient the experience fortunately is not deadly. I have 3 more sessions of ATG chemo the next 3 days. I am going to ask for Demerol. Also today and tomorrow I get the final chemo called Cytoxan. This is the writeup on Cytoxan: "Cyclophosphamide stops the growth of cancer cells, causing them to die." I'll just leave it at that for Cytoxan. Well, reading on now, there is one more chemo in store. It is called Methotrexate. This drup stops the growth of cancer cells. I will get shots of this stuff Jan 10, 12, 15, and 20.
I dont know what I would have done last night without Cathie stroking my fore brow and whispering words of encouragement.

Day -4: a.m. edition

Hi. Here are my counts.
Hgb:8.3, WBC:17.5, Plt:161
These dont look much diff than when I came in. However, Docs and nurses say that the White Blood Cell count will plummet to zero by day +5 for me. So far I'm getting high marks for energy upkeep and no mouth sores. Developing a few aches and pains but that could be from my constant muscle use getting in and out of bed to go pee-pee. They keep dripping in saline solution non-stop, not much I can do but pee into the big cup, yes, they want to measure everything coming and going. Here's what on tap today. ATG infusion. This is some foul stuff that is meant to start knocking out my remaining T-Cells. Often, the administration of ATG is accompanied by chills and fever although there is no actual infection. This is due to the T-Cells releasing cytokines. We'll see how this goes today. It is important to reduce the T-Cells so they dont attack my new stem cells on day zero.
Eating a tuna melt sandwich now as i'm getting my 14th dose of busulfex. The sandwich still tastes good. Pretty soon it'll all taste bad. but thats all relative.

Day -5

The storms are moving in from the West. I get a direct view of them climbing over the western horizon, then above the torrey pines cliffs onto the links. Now if only I could buzz down some of the volunteer trees that currently serve to shield the hospital from the eyes of the aesthetically demanding professional golfers. No tourney this week. No Tiger Woods, Singh, etc... Lets see... yes, only my 2 doctors can be seen on hole 12.
They are supposed to be doing rounds right now. ouch. If one gets a birdie all is forgiven.
Family came and left today. Dad did solitaire and read the paper. Cathie and Dylan spelled him, Cathie worked via her new Verizon broadband card, Dylan watched TV. He and I got in a quick game of chair tag. That's tag where no one can leave the chair. Since i'm hooked up with tubes it's only fair. Dylan won.
I'm on my 11th bag of busulfex today at 6pm. Ironically, 3 out of the 4 dosings are accompanied by a meal. The meals come at the 6am, noon, and 6pm busulfex dosings. I still get the hiccups now whenever I eat. They seem to be mitigated by the Adivan, and dont keep me awake. I'm told that by next week I will reach the low point of this jouney; day zero. no energy, mouth sores, no appetite, and other unmentionables. We'll see how it goes. I will not be giving up.

Day -6

Settling in to my room here at Scripps. The chemo is coming hot and heavy, each dose lasting 2 hours repeatable 4 times per day for 6 days. After the busulfex i'll be on another similar drug for 2 days. Its called Cytoxan 4. The cocktail of Busulfex and Cytoxan is supposed to make my old stem cells (and others) go away.
Dose 7 of 16 of busulfex is coming up at midnight tonight. Theyre also giving me an antibiotic drug, an anti-seizure iv and a pill to prevent gerd. I'm a little dizzy from the Adivan but basically free of other side-effects from busulfex yet. However, I seem to have caught a permanent case of hiccups. Luckily it stops after I go to sleep.
Well, I have 2 more days of Busulfex and 2 of Cytoxan yet to cope with. If I'm lucky my body will avoid getting some of the more serious side effects. I'm still eating pretty well. The food is neutrophenic so it doesnt contain nasty little bugs that could hurt my weakened immune system. No fresh fruit! bummer. My blood counts are taken every morning and are starting to slide. This is good. They'll let the white counts slide to zero. I'll get plateletes so i dont bleed to death. and I'll get red blood cells so i dont die of a heart attack. Donor stem cells will be infused on day +0, next Wed. They will move into healthy bone marrow and do the job that my stem cells stopped doing. A nurse just came in with something for my hiccups. Compazine. I looked this up and think I will pass on it. In 1o min, the nurse comes to take my vitals and then i get 2 more Adivan in prep for the midnight-2apm buselfex poisoning. Whoopee! They tell me to walk around the ward floor 3 times a day. So far so good. I'm going to checkout the treadmill machine in the patient room tomorrow. Family is visiting every day, hanging out. It's so sad when they have to leave. We also sense your prayers, good will, and positive energy. Thank you! You are an inspiration to us.
Regards all!

Day -7

Hi 11 readers. I have inserted 4 pictures into the post that you may not see in the Email version. You'll have to browse the blog to see the pix.

We got to the hosp around 8pm last night, the 4 of us. We were shown to a double room facing the torrey pines golf course and the ocean. There will be no other occupant in the room so I choose the bed closest to the bathroom. Even though the bed near the huge window would be nice to wake up to in the morning, for more practical reasons, you need to be as close as possible to the bathroom. Obviously we were are pleasantly surprised at the selection of room for us. The other 2 times I was here for a short time, they put us in smaller rooms.
Cathie, Maddie, Dylan and I visited for a couple hours while various nurses came in and poked around me, drew blood, make me sign things that I wasnt allowed to read, etc... M&D decided to decorate the 2 white boards on the far wall. Down in the family room there are many puzzles that we'll look at completing while I'm here. We got a cool 1000 piece puzzle for Christmas that the family enjoyed completing in the 7 days leading up to today. It turns out to be a really cool family project.
The family left me at 10:10pm. We were all sad about having to part.

This morn at 4am I got my nightly headache 7 hours late. So I got up and paced the room. There was room to pace! Then it got to be 4:50am. Since I knew the nurses were coming in at 5am to give me 2 shot of Adivan, I buzzed them 10 minutes ahead of time and said "I'm ready". You see, they wont let me take the things that help this headache: Tylenol or Advil. Aleve doesnt really work. So I figure I wanted to get some of that Adivan. It worked. I've had 3 doses of it now and can think reasonably straight.



This time I saw the chemo tree that delivered the busulfex. The tree has eight branches. There are 4 bags hanging, their tubes winding down to a set of 4 pumps controlled by a central computer. The bags contain Busulfex, Zolfan, Saline Water only, and saline potassium. The Zolfan is also a anti-seizure/nausea drug. The Bulselfex is the bag on the top left of the tree.

Things are going great at this point. I suspect the buselfex will have me feeling quite run down by Friday.

Cathie, Maddie, and Dylan returned recently to hang out while I get the chemo.
Its so nice to still have family time. It's only in a different place.

Thank You in Advance

Thank You my 11 readers.
Happy New Year!

I enter the hospital tonight to begin my stem cell transplant.
I want to let you know that I really appreciate you reading my blog.

Interanimate means 'To mutually inspire'. I want that between us. If Cathie's or my words or experiences during this journey inspire you in any little way then please take a moment once in a while to do something for my family and I. Pray for us, project some of your good-will our way, or silently wish us good luck. I promise we will benefit and be better off for your inspiration. All living things are connected.

Thank You!

Hardware installed, ready to rock!

What a week.
I got the Groshong catheter installed Wed noon. Stayed in the bmt ward overnite, got adavan at 5am then the test chemo dose at 6am. The adavan knocked me out so i was totally unaware of anyone hooking me up to the 2 hr busulfex dose from 6-8am. On friday i got a 2 pint transfusion of rbcs, prolly my last from the clinic near my home. They used the new catheter in my chest. The area is still a little sore. From here on out, any more rbc transfusions will be done by the bmt nurses at the hospital.

I think I found out that I will be switching blood types in the next few weeks. I'll be going from A-pos to B-pos. The donor is B-pos and male.

I have plenty of DVDs to watch and we also get netflix. My fam got me a mobile dvd player! The rooms have a small TVs in the upper corner equipped with a VHS player. But who has VHS tapes anymore?? Half the rooms have ocean views and half have parking lot views. So i will either be watching hang gliders over the torrey pines golf course or people walking to and from their cars. mmmm, which side do i want??? Actually I dont really have a preference.

I'd like to blog every day. But after my short experience with adavan, the anti-seizure/nausea medicine, I may be too ditzy and wiped out to think clearly during the 4-6 days of chemo. Maybe i'll be able to type out a few words. I'll show Cathie how to post.

Duane, a kind blogger at Journal Of A Prize Fighter who is 4 months post-transplant, has provided me with numerous valuable tips for my 4 week hospital stay that starts Tues nite. Thanx Duane!