Day Zero

For some odd reason they count the days in your stem cell transplant from the day you receive back your stem cells.  So yesterday was day zero.  I got my stem cells back.  The day I arrived and got the subclavian line was day -4.  The days I got the 2 doses of Melphalan were days -3 and -2.  Day -1 was a day of rest, and the day that I really started to feel bad.  First, I threw up my breakfast.  So I only had a few pills for lunch.  Then I had some preventative anti-nausea medicine for supper and I selected the blandest dinner imaginable: chicken noodle soup + macaroni & cheese.  It looked as if that did the trick until a powerful rumbling tossed it all down the toilet.  So yesterday all I had was a little fruit juice and chicken broth.  Those did stay down, thank heaven.

The big event yesterday was the stem cell re-infusion.  Here is the bag of stem cells (down is to the left):

Here is the tube containing the stem cells attached to the subclavian line that injects them into a space just above my heart:

Who is that bald guy?  I appologize for the orientation of the pictures.  I put them into paint and got them all nicely vertical, but somehow they reverted to what you see when I added them to the blog.  Twist your head appropriately to compensate for my incompetence.

Finally, there is the shot after all the stem cells have been reintroduced.  It didn’t take very long.  Let’s hope it has a powerful effect:

They sedate you somewhat for the stem cell infusion.  That plus the anti-nausea medicine made yesterday a pretty low-intensity day.  Mostly I just lay around sleeping and doing nothing.  Brian and Bridget came by and we played some hearts, but they took advantage of my subpar condition to slip me a couple of queens of spades.  You’d think some pity would be in order, but no.

The big news at the end of day zero was that I finally was able to move my bowels.  Not without a great deal of effort, but eventually a substantial, hard mass passed.  Thank heaven!  Now they predict diarrhea!  Drought or hurricane.  All I want is some normalcy.

Obviously today I was ambitious enough to get a blog post out.  I also tried for some breakfast, ordering bland oatmeal + applesauce and asking for some anti-nausea meds ahead of time.  But only the applesauce has made it down, and it does not feel very secure.  So the oatmeal will just have to wait.  In the overall scale of things, a little nausea is not a big deal.  Maybe this is an excuse to lose a little weight.