T-1

Yesterday was THE BEST!!! My doctors let Honore bring Hope to visit me!!! It was like a giant ray of sunshine on the darkest day. She got to come for like 2 hours in the morning, and was awesome!!! Since I left her last week, she's learned to sit all the way up on her own, she's scooting forward(very close to crawling), and she's got a tooth!!! What a BIG GIRL!!! I was so happy to see them. Honore brought me a couple of fun presents and she went to TGIFriday's for lunch, I ate potato skins and a cheeseburger. (the food here is less than optimal) The only good thing about being in here is nobody gives a damn what I eat, as long as I have an appetite. Its awesome.

Huge day today, last of the chemotherapeutic agents goes on board! It's the biggest, worst one, but after this, there will be no adding stuff to make me sicker or kill more of me. My nurse describe the first six days of chemotherapy perfectly, its like the start of a roller coaster. You slowly clank upwards, higher and higher, loading your body with more and more poison, then at the very tippy top, they give you a booster straight up and then you turn over the top and come screaming down.

The down happens very quickly, 1-2 days, and you stay down until your stem cells graft and begin producing WBC/RBC/Platelets/etc., which usually occurs in 6-10 days. To give you an idea of how low, a normal person my size, 6' 2" 215#, would have a WBC count between 4.5 and 9.5. At the low point in the next couple of days, my WBC count will be between 0.1 and 0.01. My platelets, normally around 200 will be down to 10, below 10 they transfuse platelets. And RBC, normally between 9.5 and 12.5, will fall to around 8.0, below that they will be transfused also as severe deoxygenation sets in, robbing my vital organs of O2.

There's no acute pain associated with any of this, its really more exhaustion and fatigue as my body starves for O2. Doctors monitor everything very closely and will give me fluids and nutrition intraveinously as needed. I also get antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral medications by IV beginning today. Today's drug, Melfalon(sp?), must be some serious stuff. They are pre-medicating me with a large IV bag of Zofram(anti-nausea), IV hydrocortisone, IV benadryl, and IV ativan. Then, the Melfalon only takes 30 minutes to infuse. Basically, its good night Betty for me see y'all tomorrow.

But here's the good news, there's no more shit going in. I can see the bottom, I know it sucks, but I know I'm strong enough to pull through it. So let's get it on!

Peace out and keep your powder dry! T