4/13/11 Discharge Day! Today is the predicted day of discharge from Hershey Medical Center. Bryan has not had an easy week, and he’s still working on gaining strength and energy for the day-to-day tasks of daily living. With a bit of help and encouragement he’ll be doing better and better in no time.
Since the day of transplant everyone was required to wear a mask when in Bryan’s room. If Bryan would leave his room to walk around the unit, he was required to wear a mask. When the doctors and medical staff entered Bryan’s Hospital room on Monday morning not wearing masks, Pam and Bryan knew something was up … his counts! Bryan’s blood work started to show signs of engraftment. Eric’s cells are winning – the transplant is working! Bryan’s body has been hard at work to create new and healthy cells. It has not been easy, but things are beginning to look up. With the help of the medical staff, the miracles of modern medicine, cheerleaders with constant love and support, etc. Bryan is feeling better today than yesterday, and the day before that and so on and so forth.
Bryan and I will be heading to the Hope Lodge today! Hope Lodge is a facility that provides a place for the patient and a caregiver of a recent transplant to stay for the short-term. Bry will need to have daily lab work drawn at Hershey everyday following his discharge for a couple of weeks. Hope Lodge is located across the street from the Hershey Medical Center and is much closer than our house in Temple. Hope Lodge has been, and will continue to be, a blessing for us.
To recap…
Day 6: Tuesday – The last dose of chemo was given today via IV push medication. Bryan has begun to lose his hair again for what we hope to be the last time. His numbers are still dropping, but they have to go down before they come up.
Day 7: Wednesday – Today a platelets transfusion was needed. This is the part of the blood that is needed for clot formation. This was expected at some point during this whole process. His appetite is slowly coming back, but his mouth and throat are tender and make it difficult to eat much, let alone enjoy the act of consuming food.
Day 8: Thursday – The tenderness of his mouth has been a challenge to say the least. Pain medication and numbing agents have been used to make eating a more tolerable act. Swallowing anything seems to cause discomfort. Cold foods work best, and on a good day above 1000 calories is the goal.
Four days after the transplant and doing alright. A few goals are in front of Bryan: eat more, get plenty of rest and try to get some exercise if possible. Increasing his intake has been a bit challenging when his appetite is not what it once was, but it’s improving day after day. His body is working very hard and rest is happening throughout the day and night. As far as exercising goes, that will increase as he gains energy from both nutrition and rest. 24 laps around the nurses station is a mile. We’ll take everything one step at a time.
Transplant done. Now comes the long road to engraftment and recovery.
Tomorrow I get my brother’s stem cells. He is having them harvested right now. I am currently acting as the Pepto Bismol poster child, but besides that I am really doing alright.
Meet Bowser.
Cancer is like Bowser and I am Mario. It may take a while to beat, but I win. The latest bone marrow biopsy and lumbar puncture show no signs of leukemia. I beat Bowser in Super Mario Bros Wii last week. I still have the star world to contend with just like I am in remission, but still have this transplant to contend with. I apologize to those who do not understand the Mario references.
Here is a link to fun Mario coloring pages! Peace
I took a break from blogging, but I am back. Things haven’t been too exciting since I last blogged and when they were exciting they weren’t things I felt like writing about, like nasuea. I have been feeling really well lately since I have had a small break from chemo. I will be going back to the hospital next week for a stem cell transplant which should be my final treatment. After I recover from the stem cell transplant I should be able to return to normal or atleast somewhere close to normal.
The process is fairly simple. I get part of some of my brother Eric’s blood, my blood and his blood duke it out, his blood wins because they weaken my blood with chemo then my body produces blood identical to Eric’s which happens to be cancer free. While our bloods are duking it out there is a possability that I could get good and sick plus my immune system will be down for a while, but the medical team will be monitoring me and once I recover from that I should be able to get back to normal. I doubt that that explanation would fly in a medical journal, but that is my understanding of it.
I will be spending three weeks in Hershey Medical Center and two weeks after that nearby,
This past weekend was the beginning of course 3. Bryan was admitted to Hershey Medical Center (HMC) on Friday for a short-term stay to receive High Dose Methotrexate. This medication was given to him over a four-hour period of time and it stayed in his system for 24 hours. Once the 24 hour period was over and medication did what it was intended to do, he was given the antidote to stop the medication from working. The medical staff monitored the level of the medication in his system and when the level was low enough he was allowed to go home. Bryan was able to return home Monday evening. Without the IV machine beeping at him, staff taking his vital signs and others introducing themselves at all hours of the day and night he has been able to rest a bit more and regaining his strength since returning home.
P.S. This this is Camille. I’m helping out with the updates and blogging.
Ondancitroen is a transformer who changes from a car, a Citroen C4 to be exact, into a robot who just wants to dance. Ondansetron is an antinaseua med which means it keeps me from throwing up and, by the way, it is working as it should. I thought I should clarify.
Thursday was my first day of course 2 of chemotherapy. Remember, remission doesn’t mean I’m done. Anyways I haven’t posted in a while for a couple of reasons. First, things weren’t too exciting and second I had a couple of rough days. I was suffering something like withdrawal because I stopped taking a certain med from course one. That was not pleasant and not something I really wanted to share, especially at the time.
Course 2 is underway and it has quite the variety of meds. I get pills, IV drips, injections and lumbar punctures. None has been particularly bad.
The Bump In The Road 