I met with Dr. Giralt today. I now have an official start date of September 13th and a date to receive the cells on September 20th. My donor is ready to go and I found out that it's a woman, she's 31 and she's never been pregnant. The never been pregnant part might seem random but it's relevant in the transplant world. Pregnancy creates certain antibodies in a woman's body that can allow or not allow a pregnancy. These antibodies always remain in you and can play into any problems of rejection during a stem-cell transplant. Not having to deal with those anti-bodies is just better.
Dr. Giralt wants me to be part of a study. He gave me a tome to read which I started today before I sign anything. It's testing levels of safety when adding a third drug to the chemotherapy regime before transplant. I'll read it, and I'm sure I'll have a bunch of questions for him. He did tell me that it's a hard hit of chemo, and that he wants to hit me hard. They keep calling me "young and robust" and I keep showing them questioning sideways glances.
Usually, this course of chemo keeps you in the hospital 4-6 weeks rather than the typical 3.5 for a transplant. It seems you get a litter sicker, so you just have to stay longer to recover. So, I was on a real high (well a well-tempered high) when they told me the donor is a go and the agency set a date. But then after learning his planned course of action, I just got freaked out. Maybe it won't be harder than anything I've done already. Or maybe it will be...
A nurse told me today that most people just block out the in-patient experience entirely. They say you sleep a lot and spend a lot of time pressing the morphine button. What a mess. But, I know, I will begin to heal. I can feel myself beginning to heal from this last round of chemo and I have two weeks now to focus on becoming more robust and younger (wink wink). I'll do my best,
I'm bewildered because I don't know when I'll see the kids. I swear I think it's a kind of shock. They're slated to come October but I'll be in the hospital and the nurse today seemed pretty adamant that no children are allowed on the 8th floor. It's the transplant floor and it's too risky. So then I don't see them until November? It's just been five days and I'm already wilting. I FaceTime with them but all I want is to hold them. I'm sure all they want is to be held. After this is over with, everyone will surely understand what a long-term goal is...
I talked with a guy in the waiting room today who had a transplant nine months ago. He seemed really good. He was of mixed ethnicity so his cells had to come from cord blood. Frozen umbilical cords. They look for 6 markers to match and he had a 4 out of 6 match. He seemed good. He said he did not have too much Graft vrs Host Disease. But he did have some of the longest eyelashes I've ever seen! They were spilling over his face mask. Unfortunately, I don't think that's a side effect of transplant.
The hospital was backed up today, and I needed a blood transfusion. In all, it was about a three hour wait and then two hours to receive the blood. So I ran off to the movies in the middle of the day and saw "The Beast of the Southern Wild". An allegorical story about a community of people who lived on the other side of the levees in New Orleans during Katrina. It's a story about how they weathered life. How life makes you tough and strong enough to face your biggest fears while love keeps you going. Seemed fitting.
I was so glad to get out of the city today. It was tiring. I was afraid I'd fall asleep on the train and miss my stop. I kept having these commuter half-dreams. And then I'd open my eyes and see the full moon out the window. When I got to my stop I took a cab to the house and opened the windows in the back and there was the most glorious and sweet smelling wind, completely enveloping me. I understand why dogs hang their heads outside the car window. It's kind of like sailing. There's nothing else, only the wind.
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