Well it's been a while since I wrote... My Dad was in town all of last month and I didn't make any time to update. My Mom and Sister are now in town but figured I needed to make time so I don't get too far behind...
My Dad's visit was good. I really appreciated him coming out as it was the longest time he's spent away from his wife and he had to put his job on hold etc... I had just finished up with my first infusion of ICE when he came so at first I was kinda wiped out. After a couple of days I was feeling better and we managed to get a couple of rounds of golf in (actually three total). We played my local course, West Seattle Muni, then a beauty called Gold Mountain where we took the ferry to Bremerton. The last course was Druids Glen in Kent which I'd like to go back as it was cloudy and on clear days I think most holes would have a great view of Mt. Ranier.
I had my second infusion while he was here and I have to say it went much smoother than the first. No puke sessions thank God! I didn't have any issues with my kidneys as they over hydrated me this time. I even made it through without having to get any blood/platelet transfusions
I had a chance to meet my stem cell transplant team, (the Rose Team. There was a tense moment when they gave me the wrong shot to mobilize for stem cell collection (Apheresis) Neulasta instead of Neupogen. Interesting to know that both of these drugs are derived from Ecoli bacteria I think. Of course I freaked out and thought I wouldn't be able to produce stem cells as Neulasta is unpredictable in raising counts. When your life is on the line, you want everything to be done perfectly and thankfully everything worked out ok. I ended up producing almost 9 million stem cells in 3 days! The whole process was actually pretty boring, just laying in a bed where a machine filtered out my blood the necessary stem cells which will later save my life after they completely wipe out my immune system with high dose chemo. The whole idea around collecting my stem cells is called "rescue" as they do just that. In other words, by collecting my stem cells, it allows the doctors to give me normally fatal amounts of chemo (when I say fatal, I mean enough chemo that your immune system could never recouperate on it's own without getting back your own untreated stem cells). These stem cells are the building blocks of white and red blood cells and once they're given back to me, they go to work dividing and producing these necessary cells needed for my immune system to regenerate.
So, now that that is done (check it off the SCT list) I now wait for my re-staging PET/CT scan to see if the ICE chemo is doing the job putting my cancer into remission. If everything looks ok (meaning no active cancer) I then get ready for my first stem cell transplant. The first one will be a "mild" one relatively speaking compared to the second. I will receive one chemotherapy called Melphalan at a reduced dosage. This dosage still will be enough to wipe out my immune system (thus the need for the transplant) but will allow me to recover resonably quick, say 4-6 weeks. Once I recover from this, I will be ready for the mack daddy transplant or the second one. This will consist of some of the nastiest chemo VP-16 + Cytoxan (hmmm, sounds like toxin, must be nasty) and Etoposide. If that wasn't enough, I then will get nuked with total body irradiation. Once I'm barely alive, they'll then give me back the second half (larger number) of stem cells. Who knows how long it'll take me to recover from this.
All that said, I will try and enjoy these next couple of "normal" weeks with my Mom and Sister. We're gonna make some plans to go somewhere cool like Olympic National Park, Vancouver BC, Ranier, whatever... We already went to the Experience Music Project and Pike Market and had a good time.
I miss my girl Jackie! She's at home in Michigan for 10 days recharging her batteries with her family. I'm really glad she has a chance to do that as these last couple of months have been emotionally trying to say the least.
Well, till my next adventure in modern medicine, I'm signing out.
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