12 more days

Happy September everyone! Can you believe it has been almost 3 months since I've been diagnosed? I feel like it has been both short and long at the same time. So much has happened and yet there is still so much to happen.

I went to my two classes I had to take before getting admitted. One was just an intro class to what a stem cell transplant is and the other class was a review of what to expect when I go in to the hospital for my transplant. I already knew a lot of what we went over but it was good to be able to ask the nurse any questions we had about the transplant and hospital stay.

Travis had his first appointment at MDA yesterday. He got registered, met with the apheresis nurse (where they will be taking out his stem cells) and then he got 14 vials of blood taken out, chest X-rays and an EKG done. He was proud to say that he had a resting heart rate of 44 beat/min; he and my dad have a little competition going on now about who has the lowest heart rate. I guess we can say my brother doesn't really stress about anything :P His schedule for the next week will be:
Today (Thursday): appointments starting from 9:00 am and ending around 3:00 pm.
Friday: appointments with my stem cell doctor and receive the medication that will make his bones generate more stem cells. Side effects: his bones are going to hurt :(
Saturday-Tuesday: take medication
Tuesday: retrieve stem cells. This will require him to be in the apheresis center for about 3-4 hours. He will not be allowed to leave the bed so we will have to entertain him while he is there.
Wednesday-Thursday: MDA will make sure they have enough stem cells before letting Travis go back home to Florida. They will freeze the stem cells until I need them.

Big Tam comes in tonight and then tomorrow night we are going to Clear Lake and Kemah to stay the night with my dad at his hotel. I think we are going to have a party of a sort at Jan and Janet's house Sunday or Monday for Labor Day.

What to expect with me when I go into the hospital on September 12th:
- Check-in/move-in around 5:00pm. It usually takes a while for the room to be ready for me so I will expect to move-in late Monday evening. It is my dad's birthday so I hope we will do something before I check-in. He leaves I think the following day to go back to Hawaii. He will be back later this month I believe or early October.
- Tuesday the 13th I will start my high dose chemotherapy. I will recieve chemotherapy for around 7 days. I will get a day of rest before my stem cell transplant
- Day ZERO; I receive my stem cells via infusion through my catheter. It will take a couple of hours and will have an overpowering smell of sweet corn. yuck. Travis said I will have to eat corn everyday for the rest of my life to think of him and..his stem cells....I will most likely never want to eat corn after smelling it for 3 hours. >.<
- I will recover for about 30 days in the hospital. I will be poked 3 times a week to make sure my immune system to low (they give me a continuous medication that will supress my immune system the entire time I'm there), bothered every 4 hours to check my vitals, and the doctors will be checking to see my brother's cell take over my cells (that is called engraftment, which is what we want :) ) They will check for rashes, jaundice or other symptoms which come with the graft vs. host disease. Since I will be on the pediatric ward I will have more entertainment options than the adults...they don't even have a dvd player in their room (it has a VCR :P) I will be shoved out of bed multiple times a day to walk and go to physical therapy. I will start my salt and soda mouth wash when I begin chemotherapy and gargle every 2 hours. Honestly I won't have much of a chance to get bored because someone will either be waking me up, poking me, shoving me out of bed, making me gargle or eat or drink or shower. I found out that it is imperative to shower because the chemotherapy is excreted out through my pores and it is good to get that off my body or I might get a rash. Cassidy was worried that he will get leukemia now because he was sleeping in my bed with me the first time I got chemotherapy. I reassured him that he would have to be exposed a lot more than that to get cancer.

My eyelashes are very short now...they used to be nice and long but as they fell out they didn't grow back the same. Now I barely have eye lashes :( My hair is coming back..but it looks weird. I will most likely lose it again from my high dose chemotherapy.

I wanted to thank my friend Kaileen for the lovely package I got; she gave me two beautiful scarves (extra soft and colorful) and earrings that I get compliments on every time I wear them :) Thank you!

I will update again as my brother continues his appointments and let you know of any updates :)


-savy