Greg, How Are You?

WBC 0.3

Hgb  8.0

Hct  22.6

Plt   15

Drugs.

Come now, don’t be silly.  Tell us what you really do.

Drugs.

Nurses are pushing them on me or I’m begging for them.  Adjust your creatine, adjust your magnesium!  Step right up, prevent graft vs host disease.  Pain relievers.  Get your nausea suppressors!  Vitamins.  Fever suppresion.  Protect the liver.  Deliver lipids.  Accelerate cell production.  Ward off rashes!

When the drugs are working I’m so full of thankfulness and when they’re not I am laid out flat or curled up fetal.  Or wretching.  Or having the shakes so hard I fear for my teeth. I spend hours just holding still because moving or talking may bring on a fit of nausea.  Go to my happy places.  Meditate.

It’s day +9 and they still don’t know why I’ve had this fever for three days.  Fever symptions are nearly as bad as nausea but it makes me stupit.  I know the temp is down a bit now because I’m writing!  Also, don’t have icebags in my armpits and I’m not trying the sweat off my skull.]

Thanks for all the love, peoples.  Some is here in these comments and some by mail, all good.  Thank you.

Fever 39.4 C.   My eyeballs are too big for their sockets.

And….

This…

Too…

Shall…

Pass…

Can I have a visitor?  Can I leave my room?  Am I progressing?  Do I need blood?  Are my kidneys safe?

The numbers that rule my life come out twice a day.  The main draw’s always at midnight.

Whites 0.1 on a 5.0 scale.  Very vulnerable right now.
Hematocrit 27.2.  I don’t get transfused til I’m under 25 which is most days.
Platelets 40 of 150.  ”Don’t blow your nose” when under 50 they say.  20 is the trigger for a fresh bag

Other numbers determine the level of TPN (IV food), magnesium supplements and the flow rates for any of six or seven bags of sterile goo hanging on my IV pole.

My Dad read that folks who contract mononucleosis, as I did in college, are four times more likely to get Hodgkin’s Lymphoma which I have now.

How common is infection as a precursor to cancer?   About 15%.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/05/10/what-does-it-mean-to-say-that-something-causes-16-of-cancers/

But don’t get too crazy flashing that number around.  As the article states, it’s a derivative of a derivative.  It’s useful but blunt.

I advise you wash your hands more, and keep you house/work well ventilated.

Day Zero, the babes are in.

Around 11am they defrosted my new friends and infused them through a large line at my neck.  ”Uneventful” is always good news in the medical lexicon.  There was some expected high blood pressure that gradually receded.  It took a while to sleep off the 50mg of dope but now I’m pretty clear and reasonably comfortable.  I had an egg and some applesauce, enough to earn applause from my nurse.

So I’ve survived battle with a juggernaut of nausea, zen’d my way through many hours of keeping calm and collected, felt the love and support of my ever ready parents and found tremendous appreciation for good nursing.

Thanks for the well wishes, prayers and humor out there.

Love,

Greg

The May 2nd move in went well.  Meetings, paperwork, my large pile of toys including a trunk on a furniture dolly, a large blue exercise ball and a guitar courtesy of John Krossa and family.  Luckily, my 6th floor window looks over the mountains and not the 605 freeway gravel pits.  Good draw.  IV’s started.  Played some Rocksmith on the wall with my PS3 and projector.  DSL on the laptop.  A tech center.

Chemo started six am on the third and I immediately went into hell.  Stopped eating, stopped eliminating, mind destroying nausea.  Gagging, spittting, vomiting.  A pure endurance feat.

On the 8th, it let up.  I started seeking eye contact and talking. But the one dose radiation was too much.  Nine minutes on the first side.  But I collapsed (in a harness) on minute seven on the second side.   After some recovery on the floor, did two more minutes radiation and then to bed with chills and ills.

This evening I got another port installed, like the one PICC in my arm, but this one is in the neck.  Larger bore for the larger stem cells.

Tomorrow is my birthday, as they say.  I’ll switch from O- blood type to O+ or A+.

We tried Marinol, Emend, Ativan and others on the nausea but most just lessened it some.  Sleep was sometimes a refuge.  Emend gives bizarre dreams of a level I have never experienced.  Even now I’m awake because of relatively mild but intrusive ills.

The staff here is fantastic.  My parents have been ready at all times but frustratingly helpless again my major opponent.  It’s good to have them and all of you behind me.  Thanks for the letters and texts.  Forgive my quiet but I’ve had few functional calories to spend.

Like a small mammal I hold still

Do not move

Do not speak

Barely breathe as the shadows of predators pass overhead

Please, do not let the heaves return

Nausea.  Vomit.  Nausea.