High Dose Chemo Day Minus 4

As it was explained to me this morning, my stem cell transplant on Monday is considered Day 0. The days before that day are in the minuses. Today is Minus 4, tomorrow is Minus 3, etc.

Last night I went to bed at 10:30. The nurse had to take my vitals (temperature, blood pressure and heart rate). She had to do this again around 4 a.m. when she hooked me up to a saline solution to enter me through my picc line. I also had the on call doctor come in during the night (maybe midnight?) to check me over as part of the admissions process. When she entered my room, it scared me and I yelled out. Also during the night, there was an announcement for the whole hospital regarding a Code White. This woke me and startled me. Needless to say, it was a disrupted night's sleep. I am well aware that I will have disrupted sleeps while here because the nurse has to check my vital statistics every 4 hours to make sure I'm not coming down with an infection.

So this morning I had to go for a chest x-ray so they have a baseline to show and compare if I get an infection. As I waited for my breakfast and my chest x-ray, I started another pair of socks. This time I'm knitting a large pair (size 9-10). I had my breakfast of a bowl of cornflakes with milk, 2% milk, raisin scone with margarine, a serving of cheese and a coffee. After breakfast, the porter, who I know, took me down for my x-rays. We chatted about the Kingston Frontenacs all the way down. I had my x-rays done and on the ceiling in the x-ray room was a painting of Calvin & Hobbes. I mentioned to the x-ray technician that I love Calvin & Hobbes. She admitted that she painted the tile using a projector. She admitted that she has done some other paintings on the ceilings in the hospital. As she took me back to the area for me to wait for the porter, she pointed out other drawings on the ceilings that have been done by child patients and their families. There were hand prints and feet prints that have been painted to look like elephants and giraffes and zebras. It was so cool to see these paintings. Anyway, I knew the porter that took me back up to my room. As we were navigating the hallways, I kept seeing other employees and volunteers that I knew. The porter was nice enough to stop and allow a short hello conversation.

After getting back to my room, I was hooked up to IV liquids and given some anti-nausea pills (Ondansetron, Emend, Dexamethasone) and Benadryl an hour before the chemo was to be injected. The chemo didn't start until 2 p.m. It is an 8 hour session, so even as I blog this tonight, I'm still have chemo pumped into me.

I've spent my day knitting and sitting quietly with my hubby in my room. I've enjoyed a surprise visit from my co-workers and volunteers where they presented me with an absolutely beautiful prayer shawl that has hearts and a cross and an angel attached at the ends. It's very soft and very warm. What a lovely gift that means so much! Just as that group was leaving another volunteer that I worked with arrived to visit briefly. She had been volunteering today in another area of the hospital and stopped in on her way home. What a thoughtful thing to do when she was tired.

I'm tired tonight. I've knitted most of the day. I'm ready to go to sleep but the chemo still has 30 minutes to go before it's done. Today's been a good day. I do need help to change because my picc line will have an IV in it that my shirt needs to navigate around and then my nightgown sleeve needs to navigate around the picc line and IV. I'll be getting the nurse to help me.

The nurses believe that I won't start feeling poorly until next Thursday or Friday. We'll see.