I’m not sure what I like better about three day weekends, the fact that they give you three days off of work or the fact that the next week of work is only four days. Can’t complain about either except that my four days of work this upcoming week are at the Mayo Clinic Hospital. I’m not going to dwell on that because I had one of the best weekends that I have had in a long time.
As soon as I successfully convinced Justin to take up the game of baseball, watching he and Jason play has become one of my greatest joys. Never much of a ball player, myself (I peaked at 12), I have somehow managed to father two pretty good players. Julia and I have spent the last eight summers driving everywhere, often in separate cars, driving in different directions, watching the boys play. This weekend, however, offered us a unique opportunity.
In between seasons with spring and summer baseball, I entered both of the boys in a tournament being played in Surprise, Arizona. Jason was going to play in the 15 year old tournament and Justin in the 17-18 year old tournament. However, turnout was not as good as the organizers anticipated, so they put all of the teams together into one big tournament. Ironically, Justin’s team was going to play Jason’s team which certainly isn‘t the ideal situation for us as parents.
I spoke to the coach putting the teams together for the Angel’s organization and he was kind enough to put both of the boys on the same team. This is something that had happened for just a couple of games over the years, usually in fall baseball which tends to be very laid back. This would be for four or five games in a competitive tournament, which made it great. Justin wasn’t initially too happy because it put him on a team of 15 and 16 year olds and reduced his chances of winning the tournament significantly, but he understood.
Saturday and Sunday turn out to be two of the best days I have ever spent watching baseball as both of the boys play exceptionally well leading the team to the upset victory in the championship game. In that game, Justin batting fourth and Jason batting fifth were 5 for 5 with three walks, three doubles, five runs and five runs batted in between them. Justin wore number 11 and Jason number 1 and I had a great photo op lost when they were talking to the coach with their backs to me. Hard to explain how it looked but little brother wearing 1 and big brother wearing 11 looked great. Sadly, I had forgotten my camera. Oh well.
On top of that, we also attended the wedding of one of my co-workers in the Purchasing department, Nicole Ban. Had a great time, but just didn’t have a great deal of energy as the toll of two games in the 100 degree sun and the injection that I started receiving that day knocked me out. Closed out the weekend by seeing “Terminator” and “Star Trek.” The geek in me really showed on Monday, but I won’t be going to many movies in the near future, so Julia put up with my needs.
Of course the weekend wasn’t exactly perfect. That injection on Saturday was the first of three, all of which were scheduled for 7:30 in the morning. Not the end of the world, but having to drive almost one hour to receive the 2 minute injections almost pushed me over the edge. Julia, of course, was great and got up at 5 or 5:30 to join me on the trips so that eased the pain somewhat.
These injections are designed to stimulate the production of stem cells in my bone marrow. These cells are then forced into the blood by the over crowding that takes place inside the bones. If it were not for this somewhat new technology, I would have to suffer through a rather unpleasant procedure extracting marrow from my bones.
The side effects are rather minimal as the double shot that I will be getting for seven days makes you sleepy and brings along with it bone discomfort and headaches. The bone discomfort is a welcomed one in that you know the process is working and cells are being manufactured. The discomfort is hard to explain but you have general soreness where major bones reside. Mine has been limited to my upper body. It doesn’t feel too bad when I lie down, but can be a little bothersome when I’m upright. I view this as a small price to pay.
This is really the beginning of the transplant process. The next big step will be tomorrow morning after I receive the fourth round of injections. I then get my blood tested to see if the process is working well enough for me to start the harvesting. After getting blood test number 5,000 out of the way, it is off to minor surgery (not sure who labeled this “minor” as they will be cutting my jugular vein to place the catheter just north of my heart.)
If all goes well and my blood comes back acceptable, I will get hooked up to the extraction machine for four to five hours. If I don’t have enough cells available, it is back for another injection and then home with the hope that the following day brings better results.
No comments:
Post a Comment