A few days after transplant.

I just had my stem cell transplant this past friday. Which they officially call Day 0. I'm so glad to have that out of the way. Now I just have to wait and let them (the cells) do their thing, if they want. There is a chance that the transplant won't take. Which means I'll have to have a donor, and go through a whole new set of hurdles. But I'm not worrying about that right now. I'll fill everyone in on that if and when it happens. Let's just pray it doesn't. The doctors are saying that my blood counts will probably bottom out in the next few days, meaning I'm the most susceptible to infections or fever or whatever. So, I'm having to take it really easy for the next few weeks. But I'm feeling fine right now. I just started to get a sore at the back of my throat. It makes it a little hard to swallow, but not bad yet. They say in the next few days it's going to get bad enough that they're going to have to admit me to the hospital. O'well, it's expected to have some type of hospital stay, so might as well get it out of the way. Other than that, everything's going okay. I haven't had much to do, beyond going back and forth to the hospital every day. Being here for 8 to 10 hours a day, then when I get home, I'm just wiped out. Just a minor inconvinence is how I'm looking at it. Hopefully within a month, this will all be a thing of the past.

One good thing through all of this though, is that I've met a lot of great people, both nurses/doctors and patients. Everyone has their story to tell, and it's great to hear where they're coming from and how they're dealing with everything. Everyone has a positive attitude about their outcome. And pretty much everyone has a genuine interest in what you have to say, even if it's a story they've heard a dozen times. Which I think it's good. It's good to get it out sometimes with someone who knows exactly where you're coming from. Great people here that I hope to stay in contact with once everything is over and done.

Mid-November Update

Well, this past few weeks have been interesting. Last week, I spent pretty much the entire time in the hospital getting the stem cells collected. The actual process was painless, but just having to be there the whole time and feeling fine was getting to me a little bit. I was getting a little stir crazy. But everything went good, they got more than enough stem cells to continue on with treatment. So now I start the really fun part, chemo. Yay! This week, starting today, I have to take an oral chemo through the weekend. It's kinda crazy the amount of pills I have to take. It's incredible. I actually took a picture of all of them and posted it on my myspace and facebook page. Check it out!

Starting next week, I take the regular chemo, through the central line in my chest. Shouldn't be too bad, as it's the same stuff I had to do before. But just a higher dose. But they're going to be watching me like a hawk for about the next month. If I even get a fever above 100.5, off to the hospital I go. It's all for my good though, and I'm grateful for it. It's just a really big inconvenience. I just can't wait to get better again, and get back to life as normal. But the Lord has been good to me through all of this. It could be a lot worse. And like my step-dad says "I have the best worst luck of anyone in the world." Pretty much rings true. Other than that, nothing else really going on. Just enjoying my Nintendo Wii. I can't wait to get some more games for it.

Things going slowly, but surely

Things are still going slowly as far as my treatments, but at least we've made another step. The doctors/nurses were not able to collect enough stem cells once my counts came up. So now I have to do things a little bit differently. I'm now part of a clinical trial for a new drug called "AMD3100", and basically does the same thing as the other stuff I was taking, but more effective. And since it's a clinical trial, once I start taking this stuff, I have to stay in the hospital so they can monitor me. It's not that I have to stay in because it's going to make me sick or anything, but they just have to keep an eye on me just in case something happens. So, in other words, I'm a little bit of a guinea pig for this drug. lol. Actually it's a pretty good drug for it's intended purpose, a little bit better than the stuff I was taking. It's been in clinical trial for a while now, and found to be very safe. It goes up for FDA approval in January, so it's as close to being out of trial as it could be. So, let's just hope this does the trick. Because I don't really want to know what's next if this doesn't work.

Other than that, not much new at all. I've been playing some games on my new Nintendo Wii. Man, that thing is so much fun. I'm so glad I got it. Now I just need to start getting more games. On the not so great side, my desktop computer has pretty much kicked the bucket. I can't even get the cd drives to work any more. I built it up almost 4 years ago, so I suppose it's served well. I could keep replacing the parts on it, but it's pretty outdated. So, I think I'm just going to start "experimenting" with it. haha. But I do have my pretty new laptop (less than 6 months old), which is probably going to be my main computer for the forseeable future. Which is fine with me. It's a great laptop, a Dell XPS 1530. Couldn't ask for too much more.