Our apartment

The out patient transplant lets us stay at the Seasons apartment/hotel. It is downtown one block from Cherry Creek shopping center. Our apartment has 2 bedrooms and 2 baths a living room and a kitchen. Lizzie is a little sick right now so hopefully she will get better before Monday.

week of fun

I am sorry that you have been waiting on me to write as to what has happened with the harvesting. They called me Wednesday night and said that I had 5.6 million cells and I needed 5 million so I didn't have to go in again the next day. I was so excited when I got the call that I actually shouted into the phone.
So now I just wait and try to have as much fun with my family as possible before next Monday. We are planning on going to the Drive-in and Red Robin for sure the other things are up in the air. We also had a great 4th. We had a breakfast at our church in the morning where a boy that I have never seen before came up to me and asked me why I had a scarf on; I told him because right now I am bald. He immediately asked"do you have cancer? and then he said "oh, I feel sorry for you." And then he started talking about Lizzie as if she were a boy. I kept thinking, somebody had to pay him to say this.

Hooked up

I am sitting in the infusion center at St. Luke's Hospital getting my stem cells collected right now. Yesterday I came in at 7 am and had to go home because I didn't have a high enough platelet count. I had a platelet count of 5 yesterday and I needed a 10 or more to collect. The only problem with this process is that you have to wait 2 hours to know if you can get hooked up for another 4 or 5 hours. Yesterday I went to the apartment that we will be staying at in two weeks. It is 1 block next to the Cherry Creek shopping center.
Today I went to Walmart and got my oil changed. They called me on my cell phone to let me know that I had a platelet count of 19; so hopefully that means I can collect all today. The machine is very interesting that I am hooked up to. It looks like a giant old tape/computer from the 80's. It even has little black spinning wheels. They connect four tubes to my catheter and hook it through the machine and the blood comes out of my body and goes through the tubes into a container that scoops out the top of the blood where the stem cells are collecting; and then it rotates through to a heater and goes back into my body. So far I am a little cold and light headed but for the most part I am not that bad. At Walmart I got to movies to watch; Mr. Deeds and Runaway Bride, and I got pencils and a sketch book so I am all set.

Neulesta aches

So the Cytoxan is over. I felt like I had a balloon head when they gave it to me; and I threw up right away. But the central line catheter and the neulesta shot are harder to get over. The catheter had a nasty blood clot on a part of it and it is very big with three lines hanging out from it. I am wearing Derek's big shirts so that Lizzie won't grab it. The neulasta shot is giving me realy bad aches all over my body, worse than before. It hurts to touch any muscle on my body. Hopefully I will start feeling better tomorrow. Before pictures (June 4th) and after pictures (June 20th).

Overnight in Denver

So Friday morning I called my transplant coordinator Kelly to see when we were going to have the CLC put in. She was gone on Thursday so I had to wait. She said at first that we were going to do it on Friday the 27th but after talking to the dentist we could possibly do it on Monday the 23rd (today). She was going to talk to the doctor and then call me back. She never called me. So I left a message at 5 after she was already gone. I just assumed that meant that we were going to do it on the 27th. She called this morning saying I thought you were coming today. Long story short, we are going tomorrow the 24th.

First we have to be at PSL at 6:30 to check in, which takes at least 30 minutes from my experience the first time two weeks ago. Then we will go to the bone marrow floor and they will insert a catheter and hopefully remove the port that I already have. It will stay for about 40 some days while I am doing this transplant. Hopefully it won't come home with me. Then I will go to the clinic and get 6 hours of a drug called cytoxan this will help bring my bone marrow/stem cells out. I will have fluid IV's overnight at a hotel, I'm hoping, and the next day I will go back to the clinic and get the IV's out and get a shot of Neulesta. Derek's wonderful mother and sister will be watching the kids so I am so grateful that they can do this on such short notice. They are truly saints.

What a week

So a lot has happened in the last week. Let's see, my hair fell out or I washed it out last Sunday. On Tuesday my jaw started hurting off and on; Tuesday I did all of the tests, very fun; I passed with flying colors. I did a lung test, an Echo cardiogram, a CT scan, a chest x-ray, a EKG, another bone marrow biopsy, and a urine test. The next day I had a PET scan. On Thursday, my jaw started hurting more and localizing to one tooth; so I went to the dentist. He said that it was only a bruised tooth. The next day we went to the zoo and stayed in a hotel in Denver to visit my aunt Janet. That night I couldn't sleep because my jaw was hurting so much. My cousin gave me some vicadin and I could sleep a little the next night but my jaw was really swollen and hurting. The next morning I woke up with a swollen lymph node under my jaw. So I went to a Urgent Care; they said I had a dental infection. Yesterday I woke up with blisters on my gums so I went back to the dentist. He did another x-ray and saw that the tooth went south and didn't want to be in my mouth anymore, possibly from the chemo. He decided that I needed a root canal. He tried but one canal had calcified so I had to go to a Endodontist. It took another hour and more pain but she never finished. I have to go back tomorrow to get it finished hopefully.

Because of this infection I have to push back the next steps and the transplant by a few days until the antibiotics are done. I was suppose to have Chemo and another port put in on Friday but it may be pushed to Monday or Tuesday. The worst part is that it messes with all of the schedules that we put together for childcare.

Hair today gone tomorrow... again

So my hair is starting to fall out again. It's still short so I don't think I will shave it again; but it annoying finding globs of hair everywhere. About two days ago I felt it tingling and hurting just like last time so I knew what was coming. The good news is it is so dark that it isn't that noticeable yet. Hopefully I can hold off needing to wear a scarf for another week. We were able to go to the temple today where Derek and I were married 5 years ago; while my sister watched the kids. It was so wonderful to be there and feel of that calm, peaceful feeling again. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to go for a really long time.