Day +1

Well, here we are Day +1 end I am three-for-three for days puking since getting the melphalan, not the way I want to be batting a thousand.

Yesterday was sort of a lost day. I literally told nurses that things did not happen, that did, or that something that happened on Monday happened yesterday..in some respects forgetting some days here and there will make the time go by faster! But, today was actually a pretty good day. I only took one nap and I ate something for all three meals (well, dinner is on it’s way up). I walked but haven’t biked yet.

So according to the SCT coordinators the stem cells are like homing pigeons and are busy finding their way to my bone and marrow and you can think of it like reseeding your lawn. I failed to mention yesterday that when you get your stem cells back the preservative they use emits an odor – from your body. They actually put a fan in the doorway of the room to filter out the odor. I had read about this and had heard it smelled like garlic or creamed corn. The nurse yesterday and Lisa both think it smells like concentrated tomato soup (which happens to be what the stem cells looked like in the bag). I can’t smell it at all, but I am glad to know that as of an hour ago I no longer reek!

My appetite has been pretty non-existent. And I am starting to realize that hunger is very close in sensation to nausea, so that’s confusing. I’ve lost 7 lbs. so far, but wouldn’t recommend the diet to anyone (but, you know I am not displeased to be closer to my recent low!).

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Heather

I never thought I’d be writing a blog, and certainly not one that is all about me, and yet, here I am. For me life has always been interesting, not mundane, not always exciting per se, but hardly ever the norm. When I say “It’s always something…” I don’t hear it as my life is a mess, it;s always something. It’s more of life is challenging and evolving and messy and inspiring and wondrous, it’s always something. I grew up in suburbia, buy my grandfather was the head of the Communist Party in the U.S. I was raised keeping that a secret, so that was something. I am tall, always have been, really tall (6’1″), I was taller than every human being in my elementary school when I was in 6th grade, that is still something. My parents divorced in my teens. I got a full basketball scholarship to Duke University. I married my high school basketball coach, 18 years my senior. I raised a stepson. I had two amazing kids of my own. We had a multicultural household, secular christian (I guess that’s what I would call it, you know Santa and the Easter Bunny) and Judaism, I used to say if it was a holiday – we celebrated it! We were uber involved in our community, mostly through youth athletics, coaching, managing and spectating. Our kids grew up, I started a photography business on the side (I hope to share some photos here) and we planned to travel a bit together, went to Portugal for our 25th anniversary and then my husband was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer, initially they gave him 5 years, but he only survived for a little over two. I was going to say lived, but really, it was more like surviving. That, indeed, was something. I became a widow at 49. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me. But, then it was something in another way. I relearned who I was. You don’t realize how much of you becomes a combination of you and another person in a relationship. And not in a bad way, it is essential, and you don’t lose yourself, you just evolve. And I found myself suddenly alone, and learning about myself and who I had become over the years, what was just me, and what was part of who we were together. Which in retrospect, was probably hardest on those around me who had gotten used to the old me, or never even knew the original me. A year later I found love again. Sold my home of 31 years and moved closer to work. I became more fit, ate more healthfully and was amazed that I could be happy, truly happy, in the wake, no not wake, but the shadow of such profound grief. And that is truly something, something amazing and unexpected. And then, through some routine blood work in April 2014, and a visit to a hematologist and bone marrow biopsy in May, I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. And so, yes, for me right now it’s multiple myeloma, but that is not all, there are still highs and joys, and the mundane and the rest, but something like cancer does cast a pretty long shadow.

9 thoughts on “Day +1”

  2. I know you will come through this part of your journey in your usual strong and inspirational fashion that those who know and love you admire so much. God Bless you and keep company when you need him. MS family is thinking about you and missing you.

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