To start off, I was overwhelmed by all of the kind, loving, encouraging responses to the last post. I love you all and can’t tell you how much your support means to me and Suzie.
I’m thinking of suggesting to the Stanford Autologous BMT folks that I be hired (for a sufficient fee of course) to rewrite portions of their patient manual (available here, although I wouldn’t recommend it) to add information that patients should know before starting the various phases. Like the fact that (according to our nurses yesterday) the really bad effects from the second phase don’t usually start for a week or so.
That would have been nice to know going into this phase, since as you all probably intuited from yesterday’s post, both I and Suzie were unusually freaked out and scared on Sunday. I understand that the manual has to advise on the worst case scenarios, but it ought also to have a “normal course” description too, so that the majority of patients would have a more reasonable view of what’s likely to happen to them, and when.
Day 1 of the treatment mostly involved sitting around waiting. We got there at 9 a.m. but the actual chemo transfusion didn’t start until 3:30 p.m., and we didn’t leave until 6:45 p.m. (I avoided the one serious side effect from the chemo infusion, a trend I hope continues.) The day was broken up by visits from the nurses (both of whom were extremely friendly and knowledgeable, and took the time to fully answer all our questions), the dietitian, and the lady who taught us how to control the portable fluid-injection machine that will be my close friend 24/7 for the next 11 (!!) days (no pic, click here):
Since I’m feeling fine today, and since readers yesterday were mislead as to the timing of this post, I will release you from any obligation to respond or comment. I just wanted to give you an update and let you know that yesterday went well, and that, in general, we are more sanguine about this phase than we were on Sunday. You all knew better than I knew myself … I can do this.
Categories: SSS Health