June 15/08 Update

Well we had an eventful week this past week. I was at the hospital every morning by 8 am to get bloodwork. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday my counts weren't good enough for stem cell collection and I needed to get platelets. Thursday, we started the collection after more platelets. Friday, I needed to get some blood then they did a collection and then another unit of blood. Yesterday they completed the collection of stem cells. In all 4.2 million stem cells were collected. That is more than enough for a transplant.

Now we are at Monday. I had bloodwork today and my haemoglobin was borderline so I'm off to the hospital again tomorrow of more blood. In the past 12 days I have been to the Cross 9 days and one of those days I had to go back to get typed and cross-matched. After tomorrow, I'm not sure what the plan will be until I go in for my stem cell transplant.

My hair is falling out like crazy now. I suppose I will be bald before too long. I have lots of hats and scarves to cover up with. I haven't practiced with the scarves yet, but surely they can't be too tough to put on.

We had a good day yesterday. Went for dinner at Jen's. Today, Jill and Sadie picked me up at the hospital and we went shopping and then for lunch. Then it was home for a nap. I have been somewhat tired since my collection. I don't think that it's too unusual though. My body's blood volume went through the machine 65 times in the 3 days of collection.

That's about all for this week. I'll keep everyone posted of any new developments.

June 3rd Update

Time to bore you all to death once again with an update on my health situation. I certainly hope that it doesn't bore you too much. I had an eventful week though. I was admitted to the Cross Cancer Institute on Wednesday for a supposed 3 day stay. Wednesday I required 2 units of blood and some magnesium. That put off starting my chemo until Thursday. This chemo is a mobilizing chemo to get my bone marrow moving to start production of stem cells. Thursday was a looooong day and very tiring too as my transfusions took all night to get done. They gave me 3 drugs, one was 2 hour infusion followed by 4 hours of hydration (this one I had the next 2 days also). Then I had one that lasted 12 hours of infusion. After all that fluid I gained 6 kg. YUCK!!!! Then it was diuretic time to get rid of some of the water weight. When mobility is a problem it is NOT FUN getting to the bathroom on time!!!!!!

I was lucky enough to have a pass on Sunday for 8 hours. Got to spend most of it with Bruce, Jill, Ryan and my sweetheart Sadie. She is such a delight to me. I think she thinks she has a very funny Grandma as she is always laughing at me. Jill had her in to the clinic yesterday for her 2nd shots and the little 'chunky monkey' is nearly 16 lbs. She is in the 90th percentile for her age.

Yesterday I needed to get 2 more units of blood. Even though my haemoglobin count was slightly higher than the day before. Given my history of LOW blood counts, I need to be prepared to have these transfusions. I am hoping to keep them up as best I can though. My Dr. stuck his head in the door yesterday and apologized for ignoring me (I had seen another Dr. all the time I was there). He isn't too worried about me as I came through the chemo easily (no real terrible side effects....Lucky me!!!). He said that my stem cell transplant will be sometime around the end of July. That will give me part of a summer, June and July!

I have started to take my as expensive as Gold drug on Sunday. I have to give myself an injection twice a day for the next 10 days of this hormone (GCSF) to help stimulate the production of stem cells. Since I do not have any extra health insurance until August, I was funded for this VERY EXPENSIVE drug. Thank goodness!!!!

Guess that's about it for today......Hope you're not too BORED, but this the easiest way to update as many people as I can. Stay tuned hopefully one of these days I can discuss something other than my health.