Transplant Day!

September 10, 2020

I've been feeling pretty crappy the last several days. Rounds 2 and 3 took quite a toll on my body. One of the docs said that the high dose chemo I was receiving was 30x stronger than the RCHOP regimen I originally had 5 years ago. Well, I definitely felt how much stronger it was. I've been nauseous and light-headed the past several days and I haven't had much of an appetite at all. The worse is they have me on a 24 hour fluid drip to flush all the chemo out as it can cause a lot of damage to my liver and kidney but what that does is that I end up having to pee every hour, so I'm pretty sleep-deprived. It stresses me out going to sleep as when I'm about to dose off, I have to get up and pee. I asked the doctors if they could lower the rate of fluid drip at night so that I don't have to get up as often to pee and finally, after four days, they said they will decrease it starting tonight.

I've been on a vicious cycle in the past four days. The nausea, lack of sleep, loss of appetite plus all the post-chemo meds they've been giving me to protect my organs all have a cumulative effect on my body and makes my stomach really queasy and my head in a constant fog. I dry heave a lot but haven't really truly vomited. And now every smell- the soap from the dispenser, the food that they gave me, the alcohol wipes they use to clean my port- all make me nauseous. Mentally, I'm trying to stay strong but it's been pretty tough. I'm already sick of this place and want to get out of here.

The one thing that has helped is my family has been bringing me homemade bone broth soup, congee and ginger tea and I've been able to eat some of it. If I didn't have any of these comfort foods, I don't know how I could possibly complete my stay here.

Today was a big day for me. It was Transplant Day. I got my new stem cells put back into my body at 1230pm today. It was a rather uneventful event and somewhat anti-climatic. I guess that's a good thing that everything went smoothly! The whole process took about 10 minutes. I was expecting for them to sing happy birthday to me as I heard them singing it to another patient over the weekend when he had his transplant day. Oh well. [UPDATE: They did sing happy birthday to me later on in the evening and even got me a cake! I guess they were waiting for the cake to arrive. Haha.] Prior to the transfusion they gave me some benadryl, so after the transplant, I was able to get some sleep. I had woken up feeling pretty crappy as usual from the lack of sleep and wasn't sure if I was up for the transfusion. But nevertheless I forced myself to eat some breakfast and walk around the floor. My pace the last few days has been much slower due to the toll of the chemo and meds on my body. It was very trying but I managed to get in 1.5 miles.

It's 4 hours since my transplant and I think this is the best I've felt in days. My head is not as foggy and the nausea is not quite as bad. I'm well enough to update what's been going on the past few days. The docs said I could hit my lowest point anywhere from 3-5 days from now while the engraftment takes place, so I've still got some tough days ahead. The stem cells will fill up all my bone marrow and slowly start to produce new stem cells. It is going to get worse before it gets better, but I'm looking at the positives which is my chemo is all done and my transplant was successful. I'm hoping my engraftment goes well and I'll be out of here in less than 14 days. Every day is one step closer to achieving that goal.