DAY +9

0,4!

Oh yeah. That's my white cell count this morning. My bone marrow is producing cells like crazy! 

To get out of isolation I need a steady 1,0. They say this could happen tomorrow! Gosh! 

P.s. Just so you have something to compare the values to, a healthy person's white cell count ranges from 3,4 to 8,2. To those values, I still have some catching up to do, but rest assured, I'll get there.

DAY +8

After various days of blood drawn and the white cell count resulting in whopping 0,0, I expected today not to be any different. Well, think again. My white cell count was 0,2 this morning! The engraftment has finally happened! My stem cells have found their way back home to Tara, erm, I mean, to the bone marrow. Wow! I know that 0,2 doesn't get me out of my isolation bubble just yet, but maybe by weekend. I'd love to feel the crispy autumn air!

DAY +5

Some scribblings on napkin corners, receipts and random scraps of paper.
Between DAYS -2 and +4:

Her primary goal in life is for the Pain to go away. Nothing more, nothing less. But since that isn't an option, Pain makes her prioritize. It makes her not want to talk. Every breath of air can be used more wisely. It makes her not give a fuck. It makes her choose sleep above everything else. Pain ridicules her waif-like mind. It makes death appealing. Pain stretches out its wiry long limbs and crawls into every far-out corner of her body and contaminates her as a whole. It limits her mindset. She loses the big picture. She loses her shit. She sees herself as an extension of her pain. Her body a mere vessel in a state of emergency. A broken lump of nauseous flesh and bone.


And then ---


the Pain goes away. Just as quickly as it came. She is awoken by a ray of sun beaming to her eyes. And all is well. Breathing is easier. She's a five-day old stem cell transplant survivor with no other plans except to exist.

P.S. Oxycodone is a wonderful medication.

Come September. DAY +1

My re-birthday was yesterday. 31st August. What a perfect way to end the month. Although the transplant procedure itself was very straightforward - a couple of syringes of stem cells, straight to the heart - it still felt special to me.

My blood counts are sinking rapidly, so my doctor mentioned that the isolation period with zero immunity would begin tomorrow. No fresh fruit or vegetables for me. Not that I'm actually eating anything else than porridge for now. My stomach is completely destroyed. The five-day chemo did some considerable damage there. And it hurts like hell. As of today they've also decided to hook me on a sugar+salt IV drop, just to make sure that I do get some nutrition.

Well, I'm off to fade into the world of mindless daytime TV. Have a good one everyone!

I'm alive. Barely.

"But the world had other ways of breaking men. They were already familiar with the smell. Sicksweet. Like old roses on a breeze." 

(Arundhati Roy: The God of Small Things)

BEAM chemotherapy regimen. What can I say? Maybe not too much, but this site might give you some insight: cancerhelp.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/treatment/cancer-drugs/beam

So far I've only had the B and the E of the aforementioned acronym, but I'm telling you, this stuff is NO JOKE. 

The timetable for my stem cell transplant (SCT) is as follows:

Wed 24 -DAY -7 chemo

Thu 25 - DAY -6 chemo

Fri 26 - DAY -5 chemo

Sat 27 - DAY -4 chemo

Sun 28 - DAY -3 chemo

Mon 29 - DAY -2 Rest (!!!)

Tue 30 - DAY -1 Rest (!!!)

Wed 31 - DAY 0  SCT aka REBIRTH

From day 0 it takes roughly two weeks for my stem cells to find their way back home to the bone marrow and start producing new cells. The isolation period with zero immunity is most likely between days 0 and +14.

Lots of love to you all. I can feel your positive energy flying in through my open hospital window.


P.S. I've got yet another tube installed in my chest. This one isn't as bad though. It'll hardly leave a scar. And even if it did, scars are cooler than tattoos. They tell far more interesting stories. 

Reisefieber

Remember that age-old question "what would you take on a deserted island with you?"

Now, let's modify that a bit.

What would you take to an isolated hospital room for 3 weeks?

Who'd have thought that the prospect of having to undergo a stem cell transplant felt a bit like going on a holiday? I'm aware that on some level this must be some kind of coping mechanism of the brain kicking in, but really, I catch myself being weirdly excited about it and planning on what colour slippers and pajamas to buy. And no, I don't want to wear anything the hospital has to offer. Thank you, but no.

Imagine yourselves in a similar situation. What would you take? Bear in mind that with all the chemo they're injecting into me I might not be feeling too great. So, any suggestions of reading all of Dostojevski's novels will be kindly received, but most likely discarded. Haha.

23rd August. That's when it all starts, y'all.

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Gets Going!

I'm in love with my bone marrow. It was able to produce MORE than enough stem cells for the transplant. They took them directly from the source (and not from peripheral blood stream) under general anesthesia. I'm high on happiness!