Day 53, Thursday, March 21st, 2013

Monday was Day Zero, transplant day, which means that today is Day +3 from transplant. In that time, the most exciting thing that has happened is that I was given the blood of an innocent to keep my body running. Actually, I don't know that they were an innocent. They could have lived a life of steady, wanton, filthy debauchery, so long as they passed the basic requirements for blood donation, which, last I checked, were something like don't put needles in you and don't have had intercourse involving your bottom during the nineteen-eighties, or any sort of intercourse with a fella from any number of African nations. Also, don't be anemic.

...

Blood transfusion. I received a blood transfusion.

This is nothing to be alarmed about. It is to be expected and readied for, with future actions predicated upon it; it is a matter of course. My cell counts were crashing and I needed a hemoglobin packed top-up. This was the intended outcome from my pre-transplant conditioning regimen.

This first transplant was, as previously mentioned, a myeloablative one. In essence, the capacity of my bone marrow to produce new cells has been absolutely and utterly wiped out; the earth salted and scorched, that none may live off the land. Okay, not salted and scorched, but definitely spiced.

You can think of your bone marrow as a garden, growing all manner of delicious treats to sustain the rest of your body. In this case, those treats happen to be red and white blood cells (among other things). These are the cells that carry oxygen, fight infection, and maintain you. These are the bits that flow when the heart muscle pumps. In this case, if you were to imagine that all of those cells were plants, my medical people have gone through and uprooted every one of them, following along to make sure that the garden patch is also well weeded; weeds, in this context, implying cancer. Nothing grew, because there was nothing there to grow. This is why the aforementioned cell counts have begun to drop. When I received my stem cell transplant, that was the act of my wonderful people coming in and seeding the freshly tilled earth. Things are now germinating, in time they will grow, and normal functions may resume.

I have a powerful urge to sing the Circle of Life right now.

This new growth is going to take a while, and is the primary reason that stem cell transplant patients experience varying degrees of mucositis, which I believe I've discussed before.

Right now, I feel rather excellent. To the point that I have had several nurses, residents, and other patients do a double take. "What on Earth are you doing here? You look fantastic!" Direct quote. I have yet to lose any hair (which likely will still happen), I get plenty of exercise, and, with the exception of some easily controlled nausea, my appetite is just fine. I look tip top.

Mom, during the last couple of days, felt a sinus tickle and went into immediate hiding until it cleared up. Specifically, she went over to the UW Bell City Clinic, spoke to a doctor and got them to swab her sinuses for testing. The results haven't actually come back yet.

 I met her at Macy's. She was shopping; I was putting slinkies on the escalators.