My first day

Yesterday was my first day at MD Anderson. My mom and I arrived at the leukemia clinic at 7:30 am for new patient registration. By 9:30 they were done and I got weighed, measured and blood pressured to get me started for blood drawings. I have gained 5 pounds! I am also able to jog now, which is a nice feeling. I had to wait a little bit to get my blood drawn; there were so many people! All with cancer and all getting blood drawn. It's kind of overwhelming how many people there are here just with leukemia; let's just say i'm one of the youngest there. I got like 13 vials of blood drawn; it wasn't very fun. It was the first reality check for me to remember that I am sick and I have to do treatment even though I am feeling better...because it will come back :( The x-rayed my chest and then I had 2 hours to kill before my theirs bone marrow aspiration and biopsy. By now it is 11 am, with my biopsy scheduled at 1 pm. We ate lunch and talked to a social worker about apartments but he wasn't very helpful.

once again, i hate bone marrow biopsies. My blood pressure has been low and my heart rate has been high. They were going to give me versed which is like a stronger valium. My blood pressure was too low to get the full dose so they gave me half. Guess what flavor it was! ....cherry. >.< yuck. I still freaked out, it still hurt a lot (though they cared more about my comfort this time) and they all agreed after that I should be under anesthesia next time. THANK GOD. I was WAY too aware of the procedure to be happy, so either they make me loopy or knock me out because that experience just gets worse and worse every time. Now it hurts to lay on my back (so sleeping is difficult), to walk and pretty much move. I hate biopsies.

After that lovely procedure we waited to talk to my doctor and his physician's assistant. By now it is 3:30 pm. We talked to the PA who basically walked through with us the most likely route that I will be taking. While we wait for the stem cell people to find a match for me (hopefully chelsea or travis) I, unfortunately, cannot just wait months until it is time for the transplant. I will have to begin consolidation chemotherapy next Monday as an out patient (no more hospital bed!) and do chemo for 4 days (one type continuous and one type I do 3 times a week for an hour) then recover for 2-3 weeks to keep my cancer under control. I will do this over and over again until it is time for my transplant. THEN I will do a whole set of chemotherapy that is pretty much used to wipe out everything in my bone marrow before they put in my new stem cells from the donor. So, we need to find an apartment now so we can move in this weekend and have a livable place for when I start chemo. Hopefully today will be the last day of house hunting. We have to check out in 2 hours then move all our stuff over to Jan and Janet's house where we will be staying until we are moved in! Busy day, busy week...we have not had many chances to stop and relax! It will be nice when all this is over and we can relax in our new home.

As for Cassidy, he is flying standby and trying to get out oh Hawaii. He was supposed to go out last night but all the flights were full. So, with no bags or car, he had to sleep at the airport and hope for another try in the morning. He may have to fly through to Austin so we may road trip it down there to pick him up. So busy busy day today!

I have an appointment on Friday to talk with the stem cell doctor and GYN doctor about fertility and whatnot; basically I don't have the time to stop chemo to do the egg harvesting, but there have been cases of females getting pregnant after all the chemo so I guess when the time comes we cross our fingers.

Time to get ready. I love you all and will update when I find out more!

-Savy