I’m all checked in and ready to get rolling. Today is considered day -2. Day zero will be the day I recieve my stem cells.
The room is nice.. It has plenty of room, and the staff is great so far. I have a few pictures posted on facebook HERE.
I get admitted at 8am tomorrow. I’m not sure what to expect, but I know this is all going to go well. God is good!
Chemo done, apheresis done. Now I wait to get admitted for the transplant itself. The thing is this; For the most part, I think I may be healthy enough to work. I’m gonna give it a shot anyway. I plan on going back on June 29th, and working until they call me and tell me that they have an opening and they are ready for my admission.
On another issue. I want to take a minute to thank all of my friends on Facebook. Your encouragement, prayers, and support last week were such a blessing. I was having a tough time, and you people were always there for me.. Thanks so much!
I finally collected enough stem cells! I’m up here waiting on blood work to come back. I’m hopeful that I can get these tubes out of my chest today.
A.K.A. Stem Sucker! That’s what I affectionately call it anyway 
. All went pretty well after the lab was two hours late with the blood tests. At least tomorrow, I can get hooked up to the machine as soon as I arrive at the hospital.
The bag with the tomato soup looking stuff is my stem cells.
I got my permacath in on Friday and began my Neupogen injections. Here is a picture of the cath.. ugly huh? You can click on the picture if you really want to see it bigger.
My Tubes
All of that is annoying, but tolerable. The Neupogen on the other hand, has been quite painfull. I’ve been taking the shots every morning since Friday, but the pain didnt kick in until yesterday afternoon. Boy did it ever kick! I was told that I MAY have some bone pain on Friday and the more pain I had, the better the drug is working. Well, this stuff is working!
The worst part came after I went to bed. Laying down made everything in my body throb. Finally, at 2:30am, I wussed out and took a Vicoden. It allowed me to sleep some; better than without anyway. Now I can lay back and try to rest. Tomorrow they get out the stem cell sucker and get some of these rascalls out of my blood.
Things are progressing……Slowly. At this point, I have finished all of my pre-transplant Chemo, and have completed all of my pre-transplant testing. This past Friday, I signed all of the consent forms, and I am ready to move forward with stem cell harvesting.
The stem cell harvest will begin next Friday when I begin my neupogen injections and have another tube placed in my chest. I will continue my injections over the weekend through Monday when I will (hopefully) have my first round of stem cell harvesting. This will continue every day until they have enough stem cells for two transplants. When they have enough cells, they will remove the tubes from my chest and clear me to work for a short time while they finish processing me and can schedule my transplant.
At that point, the easy phase of my treatment will be complete.
My apologies for not posting much lately. I’ve been feeling really bad for the past week and I just haven’t been able to get my head together enough to write anything. I guess my condition is a combination of some of the drugs I’m currently taking ie. Lyrica, and some I am no longer taking ie. Dexamethasone. I’ll be getting with my family doctor this week to try to get these issues worked out.
Tomorrow I will be in the hospital all day getting a battery of tests. These are partially to evaluate my ability to handle the transplant.
I kind of figured this would happen. I finally got to speak with my case manager at MCV and what I was originally told as a probable time line during my first visit at the transplant center two months ago was way wrong. I also expect that what I was told today will probably “evolve” in the next few weeks. The “current” time line is as follows:
This of course, is contingent on my having to problems along the way. Plus, I’m quite sure this plan will change a number of times as the transplant nears.
As I wind down the first stage of this campaign, I thought it might be a good time to reflect for a few moments before I take my last treatment as a outpatient.
These last couple of weeks have felt “odd” to me. I really can’t put my finger on what it is either. As everything swirls around in my life right now, I try to put all my feelings in the proper box, but sometimes it gets difficult to keep the “public Chris” persona going. Don’t get me wrong, I get so many people commenting on how positive I’ve been in my blog, and that attitude and outlook is the real deal. Sometimes however, the devil tries to sneak up on me and take all that away. The thing I’ve battled lately is loneliness. Weird huh? The last thing I truly am is lonely, but the feelings come anyway. I have family, friends, and co-workers who always pray for, check up on, and encourage me, but the feelings still come.
This morning I spent my prayer time dealing with these issues and it was very helpful. First of all, there is the obvious. I am never alone. God is always with me. I know that is such a cliched phrase, but a few of you reading this will genuinely understand what I am talking about. I did come to an understanding. Sometimes, there are places we need to walk where no one else can go. Some doors we must pass through alone so I will go where God directs me. I will stumble, I will fall, but God will pick me up, brush off the dirt and place me back on my path.
That feels better! Now I can finish getting ready for my treatment.