No Negative Side Effects (Yet) - But I Am Sure Tired

The good news is that the dreaded side effects are not starting yet. The Nurse says "just wait". I am very tired though. They come into my room to take vital signs every four hours around the clock. So I don't really get to sleep more than 2 or 3 hours at a time. Then, at 4AM and 4PM I have to get out of bed and get weighed. After they leave at 4AM, the breakfast is delivered at 7:30. So there's not much sleep in there either.

My Stem Cells Are Back

The whole process took about two hours. The three bags of stem cells came inside a liquid nitrogen container. It looked very science fiction. Each bag was defrosted in a warm water bath and added to my drip line. At that point it looked like a regulare blood transfusion. There were assorted other drugs added to the drip to prevent vomiting and to prevent other side effects from the preservative they had added to the stem cells for freezing. That was all over bt 10:30 AM. Now the stem cells have to find their way into the bone marrow to replace the ones we killed two days ago.

Chemo Is Done - Now the Fun Begins

The chemo drug (Melphalan) was put in through my port yesterday afternoon. I got 1000ml in one hour.  To minimize the mouth sores that are coming, I had to make my mouth as cold as I could stand. I kept crushed ice in my mouth from 30 minutes before, to 30 minutes after the chemo infusion By the time I was done, it seems as if my speach was affected from my frozen mouth. Boy, did I pee for a while after all that ice! All of the potential side effects will take 3 to 12 days to show up. My hair loss will happen in abut 2 weeks. I do not have any side effects today. Today is a day of rest. My stem cell infusion will be tomorrow (Friday). 

Checked Into Mayo Hospital Today

OK, it begins. We checked in today (7/28). The high-dose chemo will begin at 4PM and will take a couple of hours. The biggest concern for today is the potential mouth sores that 'may' develop from the chemo drug. To fight that, I have to suck on ice chips before, during and after the chemo treatment. They say that if I keep the skin in my mouth really cold, the mouth sores will be minimized. We will see....

The Bleeding Has Stopped

Good news! The bleeding has stopped and the nurse that did the last cleaning was gental and did not open the wound again. I hace two days off before we check in on Wednesday for the chemo and stem cell infusion.

The Central Line continues to ooze.

Every time they clean the catheter, they distrub the stitches and it starts to bleed again. Then the dressing gets full of blood and it has to be changed. It stops bleeding over night. Then they clean it and it starts to bleed........... I have been to the Hospital to have the dressing changed three times since Tuesday and this is getting old! When I go in Sunday (7/25), I am going to suggest that they do not clean it. Just change the dressing and let me go until I check-in for the procedure on Wednesday, 7/28. Clean it then so that I don't have to drive again for a dressing change every day.

The Harvest is complete on 7/22.

Yea! Another 5 hour session, and there were enough stem cells harvested to stop. The goal was 8 million cells. We got 5.1 and 4.3 over the two sessions of 7/21 and 7/22. There were 4 sessions scheduled just in case I needed them.

The Harvest Started 7/21

They started to harvest Stem Cells Wednesday, 7/21. I was hooked up to an Apheresis machine for 5 hours! The whole process looked very similar to a Dyalisis process. My blood was sent thru the machine, the stem cells removed, and the blood was returned to me. Did I say that I sat there for 5 hours!

Tunnel Catheter Inserted Today

My Tunnel Catheter was inserted today in my right side near my collar bone. It was about a 30 minute procedure in the operating room. I was not "out" but in a twilgiht condition as they called it. No problems. One hour in recovery to let the drugs wear off and we were on our way. Stem Cell collection starts Thursday.

Getting Ready to Harvest my Stem Cells

I started getting a daily shot of NEUPOGEN, Sunday, to cause my body to make more white blood cells to get ready for the stem cell harvest this Friday. This causes me to have an abundance of white blood cells and the harvest goes well. Wednesday I get a central line installed and Friday the harvest takes place. I get connected to a machine that looks like a dialysis machine. My blood goes through it, the stem cells get removed, and the blood gets returned to my body.

Pre-Transplant Physical Exam Completed

I have completed two days of testing. When they took my blood, they used 14 test tubes because there was going to be so many tests performed using the blood. This was a very complete round of tests used to find "anything" that may be wrong at the moment that would become a major problem after my immune system is killed by the high-dosage chemo.  We start a 10-day waiting period now so they can review the test results and give me a clean report as a go-ahead for the chemo.