Day -1

Tomorrow is T-day. My new birthday. So far I am not feeling too bad. A little achy, tired and my mouth tastes funny most of the time but that is it right now. I think I might take a nap soon. The kids are still here until tomorrow and it makes me so happy to have them here. They are probably going to leave tomorrow morning when my mom comes up to watch them. My cousin Nina came to visit yesterday and today my friends Steff Wright and Erin Chorak are planning on visiting.

Tomorrow the plan is to go in at 9:30 and get IV fluids for an hour the stem cells through an IV and then another hour of fluids. The nurse today said that the preservatives that they put in the stem cells smell so for the next 24 hours I will smell pretty much like rotten garlic everyone around me will smell it. Today I got a CBC and 2 hours of fluids, patassium and magnisium. They told me after I start the antibiotics, antifungal and antiviral pills I will have a fever and have a blood transfusion. After 5-10 days they will give me shots to boost my white blood cells so my immune system will go up after that. I think within the next few days I will have the no white blood cells at all.

Day -4

Still not too bad of a day. I have had to go to the bathroom at least 4 times in the last 2 hours. I guess that just means that my kidneys are healthy. They tell me that tomorrow will be the same as today and Saturday I will come in at 8 and have 1 hour of Chemo and then wait for the doctor to see me. There are a lot of outpatient transplants right now so they are very full and crazy. Monday it looks like I will go into the hospital for the stem cells to flow back into my body.
The boys and Lizzie got to go with Grandma and Grandpa and two of their cousins to the zoo today so they had a very, very fun day already. They even came back with new snake toys. Right when they came back to the apartment they feel asleep.
Oh, well here is trip #5 to the bathroom!

Day -5

The kids came down last night and immediately wanted to go to the swimming pool. We went to Applebee's for dinner (don't tell the nutritionist, but the doctor said it was okay this week) and then the boys and Derek went down to the pool for a swim. This morning I came in for Chemo and went back to the apartment and the boys went for another dip in the pool; they love it. I do have to say I am getting very sleepy today and I also had insomnia last night for a little while. My nurse, Penny is telling me to make sure I take every day one day at a time. She is hallarious, I think we will be working with her for the most part through the whole treatment. So far when I come in here they keep me in a little room with my drip. I haven't really seen that many other patients; but Penny tells me there are a few that are around my age with kids, so she would like to act as a cruise director and get us all together. I have had to go the bathroom almost none stop all day. They pump a continual bag of saline the whole time so I am really getting full of fluids.

Day -6

So yesterday was my day -7 from transplant. Transplant day is 0 and everyday after that day counts up. They have already told me that the day of transplant is my new birthday. The Chemo drug that they gave me yesterday is alcohol based so they told me that I was going to feel like I had a bad hangover. So at least know I can tell my kids how bad a hangover is! I've experienced it. I have a horrible headache in the center of my head for most of the day and night, I felt a little nauseaus but not too bad because of all of the majorly expensive nausea drugs they give you. It was a full 6 hours yesterday and I was only planning on two. The coordinator told me to come in at 12 to get started and then at 9 yesterday so called and said I needed to be in early because it was a long day. So I had to scramble around and get everything packed faster; because of course I waited until the last possible moment to do that. At least I was able to enjoy my family on Saturday instead of worrying about what to bring for this or clean the house.

Today I feel much better. We even found the pool for the kids and the laundry room in the apartment. The kids are on there way down to Denver now. They didn't join us yesterday because the apartment company didn't have the 2nd bedroom furnished. They will actually get the bed in there tomorrow so tonight they will sleep on the floor or on the couch in the living room. They already have a crib in the master bedroom. So last night we talked to the boys through the web cam. It was pretty hard because they were moving a lot and the sound kept going out. They kept asking if I was okay and it was really hard not to cry. Isaac almost cried when he was asking to come to Denver last night but he did a good job of being a big boy. I can't wait to get my hugs and snuggles tonight.

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.