Day 5 Post Transplant

Hi friends,

I know many of you have been wondering how the transplant has gone.  Sorry for the lack of posting; I can't seem to concentrate on anything for too long, and writing down thoughts seemed to be a laborious task.

To recap:

• Last week I spent a night in the hospital for BCNU chemo treatment.  I had my own room in the hospital, which was awesome.  My buddy, Jon, also visited me as his mom was getting treated at Stanford that same day.  The treatment itself wasn't too bad.  I was a little light headed, but it was pretty uneventful.  The hardest part was not being able to sleep well.  Oh, and there was the awkward part of having two nurses inspect my whole body for skin issues.
• A couple of days later, I came in for Melphalan (mustard gas) chemo treatment.  For that treatment, they had me sucking on ice while the medicine was being infused.  Apparently it limits blood going into the mouth which means the medicine doesn't collect there.  Melphalan is known to cause mouth sores, so the ice aims to reduce the mouth pain I'll be in in the days to come.
• This past Monday, I had my transplant.  The transplant itself was pretty anticlimactic.  They gave me some premeds (benadryl) to make sure I didn't have an allergic reaction to the preservative.  They then thawed my collected stem cells and sent it through my catheter.  They gave me mints to suck on because apparently the preservative tastes and smells of creamed corn.  (Jenn and I didn't notice, but nurses that walked by kept commenting on it.)

So what's happening now?  I'm waiting for my white blood cells / red blood cells / platelets to bottom out (reach zero).  Usually at that point, the stem cells we re-infused will engraft and those numbers will recover.  I'm told I'll feel progressively worse as those numbers go down to zero.

I know people wonder how I'm feeling.  Let me say off the bat that I'm doing really well and God has been answering prayers.  The nurses are really impressed with how well I'm doing.  I thank God for sustaining me thus far.  With all that being said, there have been side effects I'm dealing with.  I'll list them below, but know that I'm not complaining or suffering terribly.  Of note, I haven't had to deal with nausea/vomiting so far - praise God!

In increasing order of annoyance:

• Frequent urination (they hook me up to hydration fluids until my stem cells engraft.  I also drink a lot to preserve kidney function.)
• Light-headedness / tiredness (I feel a bit of the tiredness/fatigue I'm told to expect, but so far it hasn't been overwhelming.  Oddly, urinating is something that makes me tired / short of breath.  Still, I'm able to take daily walks, which I'm grateful for.)
• Decreased appetite / weight loss (I've lost roughly ten pounds over the past week or so, but the number isn't as bad as it seems.  At my peak, I had several pounds of water weight as they were loading me up with four liters of liquid a day.  I had also been trying to put on weight before the transplant knowing I'd lose some.  All that being said, I'm a couple of pounds below my average weight, which isn't terrible.  The appetite comes and goes, but I have some Ensure to help with the nutrition when I'm not hungry.)
• Mental cloudiness (I can't seem to concentrate on anything for too long.  I have to read the same paragraph multiple times to figure out what something is saying)
• Skin issues (I'm having some skin issues - a rash behind my ear, some acne popping up, a rash on my head.  These are all expected to clear up as my white blood cells rebound.  Still, I do look pretty gross right now.)
• Stomach pain (to date, the stomach pains have been the worst part of the transplant process.  My doctors think it's acid reflux, and yesterday they prescribed some additional medication which should help control it.  The pain luckily doesn't last very long, but it's often 10-15 minutes of really intense pain.  It seems to happen in the early mornings and sometimes after eating.)

Anyway, my apologies again for the infrequent updates, but I'm still alive and kicking.  I haven't been able to binge read/watch/play anything in particular, but I'm still grateful for that health that I currently enjoy.  Jenn has also been amazing in faithfully driving me to Stanford every day (the drive home from Stanford has been taking 1.5 hours every day). I'm also grateful for all the prayers, emails, texts, and thoughts being sent my way.