One Friday night, my PICC line was clogged.  We had to go to the hospital as the Cancer Center was closed. (The nurses couldn’t unclog it and I needed a clog-busting enzyme to roto-rooter it out.) While we were waiting for the doctor’s orders to inject the enzyme, a young Hispanic man shuffled wearily into the waiting area and slumped into a chair.

The three of us, him, Bonnie and me began talking. His wife — thirty years old — was just hospitalized. Read the rest of this entry »

Are you a couch potato? Have you grown too large for your Snuggy™? Do you hate to exercise and prefer cultivating bedsores? You like to eat carbs but you still want to lose weight. I have just the diet for you!

You’ve heard about leukemia and lymphoma, I’m sure. But what you may not realize is that the curative treatments deliver day upon day of fatigue and energy loss. But why should you care? You’re on the sofa anyway. You’ll have enough in reserve most days to punch commands into the remote. Trust me.

I’ve lost nearly twenty pounds in thirty days and I don’t have exercise to blame. Also, the chemo and radiation act as a powerful ally in the fight against excess weight. They make food taste terrible.

So whether or not you have one of the dreaded “L”s you might want to give a thought to a strong dose of radiation, chemo and associated pills. Get on that couch and lose those unsightly pounds.

Side effects may include nausea, diarrhea, constipation, shortness of breath, swollen ankles, edema in the lungs, headaches, renal failure, liver failure, heart failure, strokes and death. But what the hell, you’re well on your way with that stuff anyway.

I’m baaack! Just when you thought it was safe to go on my blog and get the objective facts from Bonnie, here I am to give you the unexpurgated (well not quite — I do expurgate a bit) version of The Hospitalization starring an award winning cast including a beleaguered, overworked 24/7 caregiver, a team of MDs, nurses, and a very sick and grumpy patient.

So, Saturday, June 5, I’m totally wiped. I sleep from two in the afternoon to nine the next morning and wake up wiped. Bonnie calls the ITA (the Infusion Treatment Area) and they tell us to come right in. Soon I have a fever. They try some Tylenol but the fever and chills keep bouncing back. After several hours, Dr. Weng admits me to the hospital. I’m thinking, well maybe a day or two at the most. That shows I’m not thinking. Read the rest of this entry »

May 20, 2010: It is day +2 post transplant. I have a slight nausea and a persistent headache that is more annoying than debilitating. I am consuming about 30 pills a day and god only knows what they are doing. I drink about three liters of liquids per day and most of them taste pretty crummy because of the chemical taste in my mouth. Needless to say, I’m spending a lot of time peeing and washing my hands. My skin is very sensitive.

Bonnie told her side of the transplant story yesterday. She left out a few salient facts from my point of view. First, on transplant day, I began with 18 minutes of radiation. By minute 17, I was sweating as if I was in a sauna. I had to stand throughout and nearly collapsed. They had to stop the bombardment and bring me a chair and a fan so I could recover enough to stand for the last minute. Then they rolled me out in a wheelchair. It was no walk in the park. This was total body irradiation, which means I got zapped in places where, for me, the sun don’t normally shine. Last night it felt like sunburn in those especially sensitive locations. A gift that keeps on giving.

I don’t remember much of the infusion. I was out of it. Now everyone tells me I smell like creamed corn (because of the DMSO preservative they put in with the cells). I can’t smell it though. I’d like to get just one whiff to know what they are talking about. It’s a little embarrassing running around smelling like creamed corn. They say it will go away soon. That’s fortunate. I don’t even like creamed corn.

There was a big up yesterday when I woke from one of my many naps. Mimi was on video chat. I sat down in front of the computer and she came running toward it, saying “Baabee” or something close. She recognized me, remembered my name and was happy to see me. It makes going through this worth it.