Day 70, Sunday, April 7th, 2013

I've spent the last week happily touring around with Ash, pausing here and there to pop more Ativan and Benadryl to take care of my continuing nausea (which is largely a result of the total body irradiation). We've made several trips to the SCCA, of course, as they wanted daily blood workups and checkups with my auto transplant team.

I don't know if I've actually mentioned this, but the doctors and nurses work in colour-coded teams; I'm on the Gold team, there is also a Violet team. When I start getting the workup for the allo transplant, I will be switched over to an entirely different group of doctors and nurses, with a new colour. I don't know what that colour will be yet. I hope Mauve.

The reason for the switch is that transplant procedures are very specialized, with different mitigating factors, likely side effects, and symptoms to watch for; it is a simple matter of non-simple expertise. The auto teams deal strictly with autogeneous transplants, the allo teams deal strictly with allogeneic transplants.

I was doing so well as of Thursday, the 4th, that the folks at the SCCA took me off of daily inspections, which freed up a lot of time to attempt things and do stuff. We've gotten to go out for supper, we've gotten to stay in and make our own, and we have had coffee from Vivace nearly every day (I am absolutely spoiled for espresso now, I don't know where I'll find anything in Saskatoon nearly as good). I finally got to check out REI (Recreational Equipment Inc), which, as it turns out, is just like MEC (Mountain Equipment Co-op), but American. REI and MEC are my favourite kinds of stores - full of camping, cycling, and climbing equipment. These are things I love to do, but have been largely unable to pursue because of lymphoma-related skin issues and the necessity of hanging about for treatments. 

Yesterday, we made it down to Pike Place Market and the Seattle Art Museum, but I think I may have overreached myself with all of the walking, because I was absolutely wiped out today. Therefore, today was (coincidentally) a day of rest, and I spent the day reading, watching Netflix, and playing Civilization 5 with Ash. Civilization is not a reflex-based game, and this, I felt, was key.

By suppertime I felt well enough that we bombled (the facsimile of normal walking that one does when full of pills) over to LaLot and had Vietnamese food for supper (it's no Spicy Garden, but it has its moments). I had soup. I like soup. 

What's green on top, has six legs, and would kill you if it fell out of a tree onto you? A pool table.