July 28, 2024
We’re often reminded that there are no stupid questions. but I get asked one every single day at the cancer clinic that I think defies that logic. They ask me every single morning whether I’ve travelled out of the country in the last day. One day, I’m going to say that in between noon the day before and that moment, I caught a plane to Prague and just got back in town. And they’ll explain very sweetly that it’s just one of the questions they always have to ask and I’ll get over it.
I had the bone marrow/stem cell transplant on Thursday. It was as anticlimactic as they had told me it would be. My job was to sit there. The nurses did everything else, including more education. They hooked me up to an IV with saline solution and gave me super-doses of Tylenol and Benadryl. They also took my temperature and blood pressure every 15 minutes for the entire 4 hours.
The bags of stem cells, which together had 389,675,000 seeds of blood cells, were pulled out of their nitrogen tank to thaw. They have this great machine that has two bags of warm water that “massaged” each bag just until it was barely liquid. Then they hooked up the bag, and it went straight into my heart. Talk about having ice in your veins!
The strangest thing about all of it is that the preservative they put in to the cells has a really specific smell, and when the cells are reinfused, the recipient exudes this scent for a while. For two days, I reeked of tomato soup. Lucky for me, I couldn’t smell it, but to everyone unlucky enough to be around me, it was unmistakable and strong. The one time I smelled it (the stench had been sealed in the car all day), it was revolting!
I’m on day +3 now, in BMT terms. That’s 3 days post-transplant. I was pretty loopy the first days because of the Benadryl and really strong nausea medicine they’d given me. Today I’m managing the nausea with weaker meds that don’t make me so fuzzy, but I still have to force myself to eat and drink. I’ve never felt this way about food.
Also, the fatigue that is expected is setting in. I can do very little; even sitting upright is too much sometimes. In the next five days, I’ll get weaker and weaker and have more GI issues. Day 7-14 (that will be Aug 1-8) are supposed to be the worst days, then I very slowly climb into the land of the living.
I’ll do my best to keep you updated, but it might be short or sporatic.
Tina, We love you and you are always in our prayers.
Bill and the children as well. Love you, Jane and Kent
Thank you so much! I love the connection of you being my mom’s cheerleader for so many years, and now you’re cheering me on. Such a precious relationship.
DMSO!!! It’s an amazing preservative!
I my cell culture days, my CHO cells were bathed in DMSO in their cryo vials before I froze them at -80 degrees Celsius! They will stay forever at that temperature, never degrading, just kinda suspended in time.
When they are thawed, I never got to smell the result, I always worked under a bio hazard cabinet.
I spent several years working on a clinical trial where the chemo treatment was freshly thawed and prepared, and prior to removing it from storage, we wore PPE and protected every living thing around us.
Modern medicine… the Lord gave us the brains first! It’s still His glory!
DMSO!!! It’s an amazing preservative!
I my cell culture days, my CHO cells were bathed in DMSO in their cryo vials before I froze them at -80 degrees Celsius! They will stay forever at that temperature, never degrading, just kinda suspended in time.
When they are thawed, I never got to smell the result, I always worked under a bio hazard cabinet.
I spent several years working on a clinical trial where the chemo treatment was freshly thawed and prepared, and prior to removing it from storage, we wore PPE and protected every living thing around us.
Modern medicine… the Lord gave us the brains first! It’s still His glory!
I have felt that so many times. Some of the biggest miracles happened in the brains of brilliant doctors, researchers, inventors, etc. My medical journey was built on generations of brilliant minds and experiments and patients and outcomes. Thanks for being one of the brilliant ones!