06/03/2013: Happy Birthday Dad!

12:05: The nurse comes in and collects my blood in vials to send to the lab or daily testing.

12:15: The nurse comes back in and starts the 3rd dose of Busulfex.

2:15: The nurse comes back in and unhooks the line that was feeding me my Busulfex.

2:30: I turn over and get comfortable, and then to sleep I go.

7:50: I am awaken by the new fellow who will be following Dr. Safah this month.  She is just coming in to listen to me breath, check my body, and my legs for swelling etc, the daily morning routine.  She will report back to Safah and then they will make their rounds together later.

8:15: I get breakfast.  Nothing too great.  A while big serving of cold, hard, gooey oatmeal?  No thanks.  I just eat the little bit of eggs ad bacon and muffin that is on my plate, and I am just going to throw away all the oatmeal, that will just make me sick.

8:45: I am done my breakfast.  I get up, throw away my tray, brush my teeth, rinse my mouth out.

9:00: A physical therapist comes in with a stretch band for me to do some basic upper body arm strengthening and stretching.  They do not want me to get weak being stuck in this hospital room.

9:30: I am back in my bed, on my computer, working on a few things here and there, looking up a few things as well.

10:00:  Dr. Safah and the fellow make their rounds.  I am doing good, walking around with no issues, no real nausea, just one day at a time.  She is happy with how I am doing.

11:00:  I am still on the computer, still in bed.  Just have the TV on in the background and on m computer.

11:45:  I get my second load up of Decadron and my third of Zofran before starting my next doze of chemo.

12:00: I get my lunch.  Red Beans and rice, yummy!  Actually this is one of their better meails.

12:45: My chemo is hooked up for my 5th dose of Busuflax.

2:45:  This dose of chemo is done.

3:00: I tell the nurse that I am going to get a quick wipe wipe down real quick  She tells me that she can get me some towels and special soap and two buckets.  I am to dip the hand towels in the bucket with the soap she gives me.  Then I am to wash myself, and put the towel in the laundry bag.  Do not double dip any of the hand towels.  Grab a new towel to rinse off with and a new towel for each new soap application.  Shen then unhooks me from the chemo and from the saline.  She says first before I get my wipe down that another nurse will be in soon for a breathing treatment for a prophylactic  measure to make sure I don’t get any respiratory problems.

3:10: The respiratory nurse comes in and tells me that the solution I am about to breath in is going to taste nasty.  This treatment will take place once every 30 days when I come back in to the infusion center for blood work and infusions and such after I am released from the hospital.

3:15: We start the breathing treatment.

3:30: We finish up the breathing treatment.

3:40: I start up my scrub down.  Shirt off, and scrubbing down my upper body.  I hear a knock on the door, it is another physical therapist.  Her focus is on my legs.  She wants to make sure that I walked in here, and she wants to make sure that I can walk out of here and don’t become too week sitting in a room for a month straight going through all this treatment.  We go through the work outs on the paper real quick.  She tells me that she will be back in a week to check up on me.

3:50: Back to my scrubbing and rinsing and scrubbing and rinsing.

4:10: I am done washing up and cleaning up.  All the dirty towels in the bag.  My dirty clothes in another bag for someone to take home for me.

4:15:  I am dressed, I am sitting by my laptops on an office chair because I am waiting for the nurse to come out and make my bed with fresh linens.  I get a few emails from one client, and find out it is the web browser and email program he is using, that is why his print outs are not coming out correct.  He thought it was related to the driver issues I had resolved lasted week, but this was totally unrelated.  I emailed him how to resolve it, and if he couldn’t figure it out, for him to get back to me and I will setup a different way for him to check his email and print up items out of the email.

4:25: The nurse comes back in and makes up my bed for me.

4:45: Dinner is served.

5:00: My wife arrives.

5:15: I finish my dinner.

6:30: My nurse comes back in and starts up my next dose of Busulfex.

7:00 My parents arrive.  It’s my Dad’s birthday, and I told my mom to take my dad out to eat, and that I was fine here at the hospital, and I will just see them when they are done enjoying their evening.

7:00: Shift change for the nurses.

8:30: My parents arrive.  They tell me about their evening.

9:30: My parents go off, they have a few more errands to run today.  They are probably going to start coming one at a time every other day between them so that they can finalize some cleaning and straightening up around the house before I head back home.  Its gotta be dusty free, pet free, plant free, the whole inside has to be as clean as can be to minimize my chance of infection when I go home.

11:00: My wife leaves.

11:30:  Time to load up on some more Zofran as my next chemo dose is coming up.

11:59: Another day gone, tomorrow is more chemo and another day.

Next Day: http://craig.handsfreehelp.com/stem-cell-transplant-day-6