Since I am tentatively going to use today as a second birthday to celebrate during the year (a ploy to get more presents and chocolate cake-Lisa where are you?), I thought I would give you a precise rundown of the day. Hopefully I will be a little more coherent than I was on my original birthday.
12:00AM--The day started off like all in the hospital with a midnight vital signs run by Meredith. She is sweet as can be about it, but it’s still midnight. It only takes a couple of minutes, but I struggle to get back to sleep. All I can guess is that it is the excitement of opening presents later in the day.
3:30AM—I finally get back to sleep, but I wake up just in time to see Meredith coming in to gather the normal vital signs, weigh me and take some blood. My weight has stayed steady from the previous weigh-in. I feel like I am on the Biggest Loser with the frequency of weigh-ins. This all takes about 30 minutes and I’m back to bed at about 4:00.
7:45AM—I again have slept a little, but finally gave up and turned on Sports Center. The shift has changed and my new nurse, Dawn has taken over. Vital signs time again and I have her tape me up with Saran Wrap so that I can take a shower. Other than getting the floor soaked due to my ineptness with the movable shower head, I accomplish my mission. I then shave, brush my teeth and put in my contacts. I really noticed that my hands were shaking when I put in the contacts.
8:25AM—It’s time for my long walk on the beach (OK it’s just the hallway, but a guy can dream can’t he?) After about 10 laps I see that the doctor is doing his morning rounds and I head back to the room. He checks my heart and lungs and everything is working just fine. I asked about my blood work and he says that the cell counts look pretty good at this point. I’m hoping to stay away from a transfusion, so I will be constantly asking this question.
9:00AM—I call the hospital help desk to try to get someone to improve the internet signal. It is absolutely worthless at this point. I can do without a number of things in my life, but the internet isn’t one of them. So I hope for another small miracle. He says he will try to get someone to look into it. Make that a large miracle.
9:30AM—Dawn comes in to start to get things ready for the transplant. It will only take about an hour or so, but I will be hooked up to a heart monitor and be given oxygen. Don’t know what all of the hubbub is about, they are just giving me my own cells back. I’m going to take it for granted that they know what they are doing.
11:30AM—Just like clockwork the technician from the outside lab arrives with my stem cells. Over the next half hour he begins the set-up of the thawing procedure and tells us his life story. I’m not sure which was more interesting. I get hooked up to the heart monitor and start receiving oxygen just before noon.
12:00PM—It is amazing how anticlimactic the transplant was. After getting hooked up with some Tylenol, steroids and an injection of Benadryl, I had more trouble staying awake than anything. Each of the four bags of cells took between five and ten minutes to be completed. By 12:30 it was over.
2:30PM—I’m done trying to stay awake and take an hour nap. Feeling much better, I do my second of three ten minute walks around the wing. I’m told that I smell like a can of creamed corn as the agent used to protect the cells during their freezing process oozes from my pores. Not much I can do about it, so everybody will just have to live with it for the next couple of days.
5:00PM—Dinner shows up and it is highlighted by a huge piece of chocolate cake. Needless to say, the highlight of my day if you don’t count the possibility of going into remission. At least I know for sure about the chocolate cake. Eating at five o’clock makes me feel like a senior citizen. Sad think is, I was looking forward to it.
5:30PM—Dawn turns down the IV drip from 250 ml per hour to the normal 100 ml. I can now go longer than an hour and a half without making a trip to the bathroom and collecting my urine. It is amazing what excites you on day three of seventeen in the hospital.
6:00PM—The NBA Finals start and begins an evening of boring TV. I try reading “Moneyball”, but even that doesn’t get me too thrilled. Not only that but the only presents I got for my new birthday were bottles of water that Julia picked up. Oh well, maybe this second birthday thing will catch on next year.
10:00PM—I finally give in to the boredom of the day and attempt to go to sleep. As usual, it took me a while to doze off and before I knew it, It was time for the midnight vital sign wake-up. You think on your birthday they would let you sleep through the night. Sigh….
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