Fred and I are in the clinic now, and I'm using a hospital computer (bad boy!) doing chemo for about 11 hours a day this week. This is not as bad as it sounds: the actual administration of the chemo takes little time, but they need to draw blood at certain intervals which is the real hold-up. One agent, Fludaribene, only takes about 30 minutes to administer by infusion, but the other - Busulphan- has to be taken about 12 hours apart. The Busulphan is so ... I guess toxic is the right word, that the pills cannot be touched, so I get them in little clear gel caps.
The side effects have been less than expected, but with chemo the real effects tend to show up over time. My energy will gradually diminish, along with my immune system. So far the worst of it is low energy, poor sleep and vivid nightmares. Fred has been a great help with asking the right questions and getting the house - especially the bathroom - set up for germ/infection control which will become more important as time goes on. Showering is a pain, with having to cover my Hickman catheter (picture of that to come soon too), but I'm getting better at self-administered sponge baths. Still, the next time I can shower without fear of getting the catheter site wet I intend to run the water heater dry. I'm pretty sure I've given myself my last haircut and I tug at my goatee every day to see if it's falling out (not yet).
We do get something of a break in the afternoons right now, with four hours off between 2 and 6. I found a movie that we can get to and from in that time - Morgan Spurlock's "The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" (same guy that did "Supersize Me") so we're going to hit that this afternoon. If all this sounds like more fun than not, let me say again that a lot of work is ahead of me. The transplant is 6 days away, and I will physically feel a lot different by then, and afterwards. A couple more days of being able to eat the lettuce growing on my deck (it's turned out beautifully, probably because the rabbits can't get to it), and it's far better than the good stuff in the markets. The purple carrots, green and wax beans, squashes, sugar snaps will all be ready when I am able to eat them again. The timing is great, but I'll have to find it all in the weeds since I can't get at those for a while. All this rain isn't helping either.
In the meantime, please join me in wishing my brother Scott a very happy birthday today (5/18). At the moment he's up at West Point for his son's graduation and will return on Sunday for the transplant on Tuesday. If you have any suggestions for a gift - other than my undying gratitude for saving my life - I'd love to know. He's impossible to buy for. Ciao for now ~
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