4-month update

I'm back at work part-time and rehearsals for Iolanthe have started, so I'm more of a real person again! I got my bone marrow biopsy from mid-May back and everything's good - 3% blasts (the immature cells in the marrow - you want some because that means you're making new cells but you want less than 5% because that means you're not making too many with problems) and all the DNA stuff came back negative for mutations, so I'm still on the right track!

Went to Pennsylvania for Lauren and Jeff's wedding and successfully spent 3 1/2 days out of state with no major issues. Forgot the camera, though, so I don't have any photos to post.

Day 100! - Wednesday, May 16, 2012

My 100 days are over! I don't really feel any different than yesterday, but it's nice to think that I've reached a milestone and am going to be able to move back towards doing normal-ish things again. Abby sent me a happy 100 days picture of us at a more-different 100 days (the 100 days until graduation party Rice threw for the seniors).

Today wasn't terribly exciting. We realized we really need to go to the store, as we're out of milk and therefore we ended up making mac and cheese with just butter and the cheese granules, which is delicious but also probably super fattening. Patrick went out to his parents' house to help his dad with the shelving in the new garage so they can get their garage stuff put away instead of in a big pile in the middle of the garage. I stayed home as more being-alone practice and watched some trashy tv (Ghost Hunters was on SyFy, and that was the most interesting thing on). I did see about 5 minutes of Toddlers and Tiaras, but I think my IQ dropped just from watching those people, so I stopped as soon as I could.

Got my syllabus for my next class, which starts next week. The course itself looks really interesting, but I think the professor seems a bit weird. We have another group paper due as part of this class, but in the syllabus he suggests that instead of your group splitting the paper up into 3 pieces, he wants you to each write a 10-15 page paper and then take the best parts of each and put them into one paper. That seems to me incredibly inefficient.

Going out to coffee with Erin tomorrow afternoon, before she moves away to Dallas. Will be fun!

Day 99 - Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Went to the hospital this morning. My levels still aren't good enough for the line to be taken out, but they were stable enough for Diem to think that I didn't need to be seen again until next Tuesday. I'll be going in for a blood test on Thursday but then going home, and they'll just call me with my results.

Patrick was on the phone most of the day with some conference call, so I had time to keep quiet and do random things I'd put off of my to-do list until today. I took a short nap this afternoon, too.

Patrick went to game night at Jack's tonight and left me alone to test my being-alone abilities. Nothing really happened. I watched some tv and chatted with Claire and Abby online. Also I did a load of laundry, because clean things are okay for me to mess with.

Day 98 - Monday, May 14, 2012

Mom came over to sit with me today while Patrick went to work. Did the Monday newsletter for school, and Mom and I went to Pei Wei for lunch. Or rather, we picked some up and went back home so I could cook mine for longer in the microwave to make sure everything was cooked and dead. I drove for the first time since the transplant to make sure I still remember how to do it and to work my way up into being a normal person again.

Mom left for her dentist appointment right around the same time Patrick got home. Andyr came over around 6 to take me to the HGS board meeting, which took FOREVER and was super super frustrating, mainly because the board is populated by old people who dislike new things. The meeting ended at 10 but Andyr, Tim, and I got cornered in the parking lot by George and we ended up talking for a while about what should be done, and then complaining about how it'll never be able to be done after George left. The gala proposal Christine and I worked on was shot down spectacularly for no good reason other than "we shouldn't think about this until after the show, because we should focus on what we have to do for the show" - and then "well, this proposal is nice, but we really should do this other thing that is totally unrelated because we want to make sure we can seat 800." What? I don't understand how this group is still around with some of the wacky/bad decisions that are made.

Day 97 - Sunday, May 13, 2012

Got up early and went to help Patrick's parents move the last stuff around. Patrick and his dad put shelves and stuff together while I helped his mom go through the last cabinets and pull the final pictures/etc off the walls. Packed up a stack of old records which included "Disco Noel" - complete with dance instructions. I took a nap while the set up the tv, and woke up just in time for them to find out that the tv was broken sometime between unplugging it at their old house and getting it all set up at the new one.

We went over to my parents house after that and played some bananagrams with Mom and Dad before Patrick's parents came over to join us for dinner. We had a joint Mother's Day dinner cooked by the dads that almost ended badly because Dad had forgotten to refill the propane tank on the grill and the steaks didn't get quite done before it ran out. Mine got finished in the oven.

Day 96 - Saturday, May 12, 2012

Patrick woke up super early today, Saturday, May 12, 2012, to go out to do the final day of moving big things in a truck, since his parents should be closing on their old house on Monday. I got up and napped on the couch until Dad got here around 6:45, and then I went back to bed until around 8:30. I sorted through all the newspapers and got Dad to take me to the recycling center and then we went to Einstein's for bagels to take home for a late breakfast. Einstein's was super busy and took way longer than expected, but we had deliciousness to take home after a while. I hid in the corner by the cash register while we waited for our food.

I did a bit of work while we watched some History channel and Dad made me some lunch before Lauren, Claire and Julia came over and we worked on assembling Lauren's ceremony programs for her wedding in a couple weeks. Lauren had the most gigantic and terrifying hole puncher that also put grommets into paper, so after we'd cut out all the pieces, Julia collated, Claire cut ribbon, and I tied ribbons on while Lauren used her giant grommety punching machine.

Claire and Julia had dinner plans so Lauren called Jeff over and the three of us went to Escalante's for crack salsa and un-lettuced flautas on my part. We saw a bunch of people there in bright orange and realized they must have come from the Dynamo game - which was the first game in the new fancy stadium. A bunch of them had the Dynamo scarves on and sat on the patio, which I thought was funny since it was like 90 degrees outside.

We went back to our place afterwards and watched Up while waiting for Mikey and Lauren to come over with their stash of bad movies. Then we watched Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla, which is really a very bad movie, and Lauren H. and I wrote out the escort cards for the wedding, completing two tasks in one day! Patrick got home around midnight and went straight to bed, since we have to get up early for more moving.

Day 95 - Friday, May 11, 2012

Last shot was today! It took them a really long time to get me in, and then they tried to take my vital signs twice because they weren't talking to each other, or something. Did my skype date with Candace when I got home. I think things will work out okay eventually at work.

Mom came down and brought over the foundation proposal with finalized amendments and signatures and such and drove me the block over (it's in the office building at Burgoyne and Fountainview, so very close to my place) so I could drop it off. Ended up having an awkward conversation with the man who works there, mainly because he seemed a bit hard of hearing and kept mishearing what I was saying. But everything seems all right on that front.

We went to pick up some bolts/nuts at Home Depot so Patrick could rebuild the closet and hang his monitor now that we finally found a mount that fits it online, and went to Joann's so I could get my fabric for my patron party dress with my fancy Teacher Appreciation coupon. A gigantic storm hit right after we got home, so it was good that we didn't dawdle too much at Joann's. We ended up watching stuff on netflix all evening with candles going just in case the power went out (it didn't).

Day 94 - Thursday, May 10, 2012

Today I got shot #4, which came a lot faster than usual, so while Patrick parked the car, I ended up doing vitals and getting a room, which wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that the ATC in the Mays clinic is like a faraday cage or something and you have zero signal. Saw Diem after getting my shot so she could check for rashes and stuff, and found out that my doctor is going to be leaving to work at a different hospital (in Ohio! far away!) at the end of the summer, so I'll probably get assigned to another doctor. Hopefully I'll be able to get one of the other doctors Diem works with so I can keep seeing her.

Went up to Pope John to do some work and printing for a grant proposal that's due next week. Have a skype meeting with my new boss (the current admissions director, so I do actually know them, which is good for me and having to work from home for a while longer) tomorrow to talk about things. I'm not quite sure what we'll be doing, but hopefully everything will work out.

Did my final "reflections" work for class, so I've officially turned in all my work for my first grad school class. Hopefully all the grades come back okay!

Day 93 - Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Third shot today, which took a while because they needed to check my labs before they gave it to me. Everything was good, especially since my creatinine went down a bit on its own without me needing more fluids in an IV. It's 1.03, so a little lower but still not quite low enough. My tacro was also low so I'm going to take a little more to get it back into the right range.

We watched a couple of episodes of the first season of Buffy tonight. So much terrible 90's fashion and trends. One episode featured a troll pencil. I'm waiting for someone to show up with a Trapper Keeper. Also, so much grunge.

Day 92 - Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Woke up early again for another shot, and got to the hospital around 7:30, hoping that we would be home in time for Patrick's 9:30 conference call. Since all I was doing was getting a shot, it didn't seem like it'd be a difficult thing, but they were really slow, and then the pharmacy was super slow refilling my heparin. Not much else to report for the day.

Patrick's mom came over around dinner to clean since she'd been busy moving the past couple of weekends.

Day 91 - Monday, May 7, 2012

Went super early for blood draw and dressing change today. Saw Diem before getting my vidaza shot - my hemoglobin and platelets were down some, which is sad, but I don't need any transfusions so that's good. My creatinine was a bit high again but not too high (1.06, where normal is 1 or lower), so everything is okay for now. If it goes up again they'll give me some more fluids, probably.

All my shots are in the ATC in the Mays clinic this time because they're doing construction on the other ATCs, which is annoying because it's like a quarter mile walk down a skybridge to get there from the normal clinic building. Shots went fine.

Went to Whataburger on the way home so mom could get a coke and I got fries and a chocolate shake - hooray for calories! Watched some tv and did some work for Pope John while waiting for Patrick to get home. Monday is newsletter day, so I had that to work on.

Day 90 - Sunday, May 6, 2012

Patrick was helping his parents move some more (mainly stuff from the garage and patio today, it sounded) today so I finished up my final project for school while at my parents house. It's really frustrating having to work in a group that has 3 people in 3 time zones, so I'm really glad that I'm done with the group projects. Hopefully there'll be better groups in the next class. The people were okay, but I'd much rather work with people who are not 2 hours off from me.

Mom made brownies for first dinner (Ghiradelli, yum!) and we went to the Bernstein's MASS that Cecilia (the chamber choir I'm in) was putting on. It was really good, and I'm sorry I missed being able to be in it. Halfway through I realized that we sang one of the songs the children's choir sings at Langham. I just didn't know where it was from! One of the girls in the choir that I hadn't really had the chance to talk to much came up to me afterwards when I was looking for Julie and Shelton and asked me if I'd been at Allie's wedding the night before - apparently she was there too and was in the Cinco choir with Allie. Small world!

We went to Jason's for dinner right before it closed and brought it home and ate while Patrick was on his way back. Watched some Mythbusters.

Day 89 - Saturday, May 5, 2012

Today was busy and full of fun things to do. First, Julia picked me up and we adventured to Courtney's apartment for Lauren's bridal shower, where we helped set up, tried to stop Lauren from helping to set up, and moved tables in many different orientations until we figured out how to arrange people best. We'd kept forgetting things (I perhaps was not as prepared as I should have been) and Courtney and Laura kept calling JT and Daniel to bring us things like chairs and CDs. Because it was a scrapbooking party, there was a ton of random paper/scissors/stickers/etc that Courtney'd inherited from someone stacked in a giant pile that I'm surprised didn't fall over at some point.

Since we were asked to bring photos of Jeff and Lauren that we had, and lots of us have been friends for a while, we had lots of repeat photos... especially the "julia, play twister with us" series. I'd gotten lazy when ordering prints from Walgreens, so that's actually the only photos I brought, but other people had other ones. My stickers and bag of personal scrapbooking items was super popular and impressed all the ladies Lauren's mom's age... apparently they thought that owning a lot of scrapbooking supplies in a nice bag equals BEING AWESOME AT SCRAPBOOKING. While I'm not terrible at it, nothing I make looks super professional/neat either.

Went home after helping to pack up some of the paper and stuff, and did my baby bottle of magnesium before Allie's wedding. Since I had two parties I got to wear two of my new nice dresses I bought online since my dresses from before I got sick don't really fit very well. Hooray for gift cards! 

I wore my floppy purple hat to Lauren's shower to get her mom used to the idea that I don't have hair and am wearing a hat to the wedding (her mom's kind of particular, so just wanted to make sure she wasn't going to freak out), but I wore my blonde wig to Allie's wedding, which made for some interesting times. Especially when Whitney sat down in the pew behind us and asked Patrick "Where's Gillian?" I guess the last time she saw me I did have a brown buzz cut kind of haircut, but still. Why would Patrick bring someone else to Allie's wedding?

Got to see a bunch of phils and danced some before the dance floor got too crowded and had lots of fun. I'm super glad I got to go, especially since Kyle's moving to DC in a couple of weeks so it was one of the last times I'll get to see him as a Houston resident, and Payton was in from Dallas but will be starting his Fulbright program in Mexico soon (and I won't be able to visit him there). Alayne and Whitney are both in DC as well, so I will hopefully get to visit them at some point.

My toes are sore from dancing and heels, which I haven't worn in a while. Not much of a use for them at the hospital.

Day 88 - Friday, May 4, 2012

Woke up early and ran out to Cypress today because Patrick took the day off to keep helping his parents move and set up their new house. I spent the day at my parents' working on homework and some stuf for Pope John. Brett was home from UT to take Emily to prom, so I got to see him off in his tux and then I took a nap while Mom went to take pictures. My nap was longer than expected as their limo had a flat tire and was really late so they sat around in the cars with a/c running until it got there.

Went home and set up some final things for Lauren's bridal shower tomorrow. Including finding Twister photos! And finding that my origami vases had failed. Mason jars for the win! Also, I made Patrick take me to Kroger to buy cupcakes after we got home since I hadn't had enough time to make them from scratch.

Day 87 - Thursday, May 3, 2012

Went back to the hospital today and the fluids seemed to work, or whatever else it was, because my creatinine was down back into the normal range, yay! Mom took us out to Buca di Beppo for lunch. Diem told me to do my last bottle of fluids on Saturday and we'll see on Monday what the rest of the counts are. I'll still start vidaza on Monday unless something super weird happens.

Diem did say I can be alone now for a while for small periods of time, like for Patrick to run to the store or something. He did actually run to Kroger this afternoon to get some things like milk and left me here, but I napped for like the whole time he was gone so I didn't really notice.

Did more work on the MPAA project due this weekend; class'll be basically over once this is turned in - afterwards is just "reflections on the course" and such.

Day 86 - Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Did a bunch of work for our final project for my communications class today. We've got a paper and a powerpoint due and while the topic is really interesting, I'm not sure my group is all on the same page. We had a chat online REALLY late tonight that was not very concise but it's way harder for us to collaborate than the other groups, as all of the other groups are all in the same time zone - we're the odd group out and we've got one person in central, one in mountain, and one in pacific, which is really annoying for planning. I'm always staying up late. We went and saw La Cage aux Folles at TUTS tonight and it was REALLY good. George Harrison was playing Georges and sort of showing his age, but everyone else moved around him enough that you didn't notice. The chorus showboys were spectacular, though, and super impressive. They made me feel like a super bad dancer.

Day 85

Claire came over today while Patrick went to game night - it worked out well, since she didn't really want to sit around and listen to the guys play games and I needed a babysitter. We went to DSW to find her some fun shoes for Lauren's wedding that were still minister-appropriate, and she found some awesome blue flowery shoes that looked really exciting. Sad that she didn't get the giant stiletto peacock feather ones, but still fun. Then we went to Dessert Gallery and got delicious cupcakes to-go and brought them back home to eat while watching the season finale of Top Shot. Claire'd never seen it before, but she decided it was better than some of the weird reality shows that are popping up on TV now. Chris the IT guy won and it was very exciting that another non-professional, non-military person won the competition. Still too bad that Gabi got kicked out so early, though.

Day 84

Went in for my blood test and visit before getting my vidaza shots but my creatinine went up again to 1.4, even though I'M DRINKING A TON, so I'm not starting the shots until next week. They've re-ordered the home health liquids for me so I can get 500mL directly into my veins which hopefully will be better at clearing stuff out of my system. So I have the baby bottles again from today until Thursday, and then they'll decide what else needs to be done.

I did get home earlier than usual, though, because I didn't have to stay longer for an extra bag of whatever, so on the way home Mom took me to Target to buy cards for the parties I'm going to this weekend (Allie's wedding + Lauren's bridal shower) and socks for Patrick, who has been running low on socks for a while.

Since we got home at noon, I actually ate a real lunch at home for once (Dad's soup and potato/apple hash) and got the school newsletter done in a reasonable time frame. We watched a couple more episodes of Warehouse 13, and Patrick got home in time to see the end of the one with Jewel Staite and Sean Maher guest starring (from Firefly), and decided that maybe this show is okay and he'll watch it with me.

We went out to dinner with Ryan and Micaela and then to bowling at 300 because we had a groupon that was expiring and we figured that going on a Monday night would be good for me because it wouldn't be crowded or have tons of kids. Apparently we were wrong. There were kids on both sides of us that weren't being controlled by their parents AT ALL and kept running in front of us while we were trying to bowl. Micaela almost smacked one with her bowling ball, which would not have been good for anyone. And their parents were watching them the entire time! Just not saying anything. Some other lady a few lanes over came to talk to one of them and tell them that they can't play ring-around-the-rosie wherever they want, they'll get hit by a bowling ball... it was not a pleasant bowling experience. I did find out that I can bowl about the same left handed as right handed though, as it hurt my line to bowl right handed. We left early without playing our second game because it was so crowded and stressful.

Day 83

Woke up early so Patrick could get out to Cypress to help his parents move furniture. Since I still have my line in, furniture moving is a bad idea for me, so I spent the day at my parents' house, doing homework and watching Mythbusters. Mom took me to Pope John for a couple of hours so I could work on stuff that I can't do from home.

Figured out when Say What is on the radio - 11 am on Sundays - and listened to it with Mom. I wish I was that smart and could figure out those things.

Day 82

I had more visitors today than I've had in months. First, Christine from HGS came over and we discussed planning a fundraising dinner theater thing for the fall since it's the 60th anniversary of the group, and so a good year to start trying to have annual dinner things. It'll be interesting to see if we actually get anything set up and working for this, and if the board approves it, since they are reticent to try new things.

Then Lauren, Claire, Julia, Sarah, and Laura came over for a baking party and Trapped in the Closet watching. It is just as bad as I remembered it being. Hooray part 3 coming out soon! We did make a huge mess of the kitchen, though, which I should remember not to do again.

We went out to dinner after the guys finished gaming and it felt great to be able to be out and also eat at the restaurant I went to without any nausea. Hooray pasta!

Day 81

Kept drinking tons of water today. Not sure how much but it felt like a ton.

Patrick went out to help his dad with electronics/internety stuff at the new house tonight, so Dad came over after work and sat with me. We watched a bunch of Warehouse 13, since Patrick doesn't really want to watch it with me for whatever reason. Maybe he just doesn't want to get into another show?

Day 80

Back at the hospital. I obviously drank a little okay or the drugs are getting out of my system because my creatinine is down to 1.27. Which still isn't great but is much lower than 1.8 and is a pretty okay change in only 3 days. My tacro is still a bit high so they're going to lower it again to where I'm only taking one pill a day. I'm worried that something's wrong but they don't really seem to be.

Day 79

We didn't go anywhere today. Did more work on Gonzaga projects and chatted with my group members online. We've been doing okay at this, considering it's a lot more difficult to put a powerpoint together when you can't ever meet each other in person.

Patrick made soup out of the roasted vegetables we put on our pasta last night, and it turned more into a sort of pasta sauce in a bowl. But it was tasty all the same.

Day 78

Spent a lot of today drinking and trying to make sure I got enough water/food into me. It's nice taking like half the amount of pills as before. Worked on a grant application for Pope John and did some reading for fun.

Day 77

Went to the ATC for pentamadine today and had my blood test in the morning, which is good, because they found that my creatinine got REALLY high (like kidney damage high) so they started me on fluids as well. The rest of my counts were around the same. Diem came down and visited me since I was hooked up to the IV pole for a long time and wouldn't make it up to my appointment in the clinic. She thought my splotchy rash from the pentamadine was GVHD, but it was gone by the time I went home, so it wasn't. I'll probably not do the pentamadine again since the rashes seem to be getting worse each time, even with benadryl and steroids beforehand.

I still have my line in and having to get the dressing changed because I might need more fluids for the creatinine. Hopefully I'll be able to drink enough to get it down on my own. My tacro came back super high (almost 14! and they want it less than 10), so they're cutting that in half and my magnesium in half to help give my kidneys a break. Hopefully it'll work!

Day 76

Had the first sing-through for Iolanthe this afternoon. Not sure if it's just that it's a longer show than Mikado or that hardly anyone has done it before, but they used the whole 3 hours for the sing-through, instead of the leave an hour early sing-throughs last year.

Then Patrick went to do more work on the attic and I stayed with my parents and watched Mythbusters and did some of my response/discussion homework.

Day 75

Went out to Patrick's parents' new house today and sat around reading/napping while Patrick and his dad worked on finishing out the attic and his mom worked on cleaning the rest of the house well before they moved their stuff over. I ran a couple of errands with Debbie and we went to dinner at Chili's afterwards. I started feeling kind of bad while there, probably because apparently the Chili's in Cypress has a bar that allows smoking and we were right next to a table that was smoking.

Day 74

Lauren, Jeff, Laura, and Daniel came over to visit tonight after dinner. I wasn't sure they were going to because it started raining super hard and then hailing, and the weather seemed very sketchy. Did some reading and powerpointing for school and worked on some photo stuff for Pope John. I really need to get more done for all things.

Patrick found the second season of Ugly Americans online (it's not out on dvd yet sadly) so we've been watching those. I really like it more than I should.

Day 73

Went into see Diem today because Dr. Delima was still rounding in the hospital. My counts are fairly stable except for my creatinine is still high (1.19) even though I feel like I'm drinking a lot. Maybe I'm not and I need to drink even more.

Working on grad school stuff tonight.

Day 72

Went to Costco today for exercise and because we'd run out of protein shakes. Did my walking around (awkwardly with my hands clasped so I didn't touch anything) and didn't feel bad after the exercise, which is an improvement on last week's trip to Kroger where I threw up afterwards, possibly from overheating.

We went to Bullrito's to get lunch to take home, and I sat in a corner while Patrick explained my "nothing can touch lettuce" order as there was a huge group of high schoolers there. I guess they'd gotten out early for the day? It was like 2:30, and they already had their food, so I assume they were let out early. All the boys had Justin Bieber haircuts, which we laughed at.

Eating better!

Day 71

Did some schoolwork and a lot of reading today. Finally started being hungry again. Caught up some on data entry for work. Not much going on here.

Day 70

Went for my last dose of fluids/magnesium today, and ended up being at the hospital for almost 12 hours because I needed a blood transfusion. It's not too surprising since I'm at the low point from the vidaza, but it would be nice if my counts went up enough for me to not have to worry about transfusions anymore. The nurse told me it'd take about an hour for the blood to come, and then two hours passed, and then a couple more, and finally she told me to go get my dressing changed because no one knows where the blood is or when it's coming, so by the time I got back to the ATC at like 6 pm, it was finally there.

Still have my line since I had to get the transfusion and they want you transfusion-independent before they take it out, just so they don't have to worry about you having to get stuck with peripheral lines, which are sometimes hard to place. I'm supposed to ask about it getting removed at my appointment on Thursday, which will be in the normal clinic! So I'm one step closer to being done, but still full of steps to take.

Day 69

Spent the day with Patrick's family because his grandparents are leaving tomorrow. We got there not too late but then had to leave for a while because someone was going to look at the house for a couple of hours. We went to Fajita Willie's and sat around and ordered some food and chatted and I just felt awful for like half the time. I think part of it was that I didn't want to eat, and then I was stressing out about eating which made my stomach feel worse, and it just ended up with me crying in the backseat of their van like a little girl as we were leaving.

They stopped by Kroger and bought me some chicken broth and saltines on the way home, which was good because I can power through saltines like nobody's business, even when I'm feeling poorly. So I took a nap and ate crackers and watched Mythbusters while they played cards and Patrick's grandmother napped and propped her legs up.

I didn't eat much dinner, either, as I nearly threw up when I tried to eat my burger. Went straight to bed when we got home.

Day 68

Mom sat with me during the day after her DAR meeting while Patrick went out to spend time with his grandparents and I stared at my computer waiting to make sure I got communication with my group members for our project proposal that was due tonight. It got done, but in between there was a lot of sitting around, reading, and watching TV.

Started watching Warehouse 13 on Netflix. I enjoy it; it's like Torchwood, kinda, except you don't have main characters dying in every episode.

Day 67

Didn't do too much today. Read some and did a bit of work. Thought I was going to be working on a project with my group in the evening, so we didn't go anywhere, but it turned out I was mistaken about the timing so we sat around all day for nothing. We did watch the documentary on the MPAA ratings system for films because our final group project is on it and Patrick wanted to see it sometime anyways.

Still not eating enough.

Day 66

Went to the atc again today - my magnesium was a little low and my kidney levels were a little high but they weren't too worried. Not much else. I'm still on track to get my line out soon - I'm going to use the magnesium we didn't use yesterday tomorrow, and then be off the whole weekend.

Spent a lot of time doing work for class today.

Day 65

I didn't have anything hooked up to me at all today! We're going to see how my levels do tomorrow with me not on anything. Hopefully they'll be good enough to at least keep me on track to get my line out.

I haven't been eating very well, so hopefully I'll be able to work on keeping things down. I threw up right before bed tonight, which probably isn't helping.

Day 64

Went to the gynecologist today for my 3-month lupron checkup. Since I'm not getting anymore hardcore chemo, I didn't need to get another dose of the lupron, which is good because I'm pretty sure it's what causes my ears and head to get really hot randomly.

Since I had the blood clot in December, she didn't want to give me anything with estrogen in it, and IUDs creep me out, so I'm now on a progestin-only pill since I have to be on some form of birth control for them to give me the vidaza shots. She's not sure if it'll have any effect or if my hormones will go back to normal on their own, so they're going to do some tests in August (6 months post-transplant) and see what my body's doing.

Day 63

Long day at the hospital like every Monday, made longer by the fact that Dr. Delima was super late. He usually shows up around noon, but didn't make it until almost 3. He looked me over and said I was doing fine but that the fevers that kept popping up might have something to do with my line, since they keep doing blood cultures and everything's negative. So they're going to start weaning me off the magnesium fluids and go to just pills, and take out the line soon - maybe next week.

We got my tacro changed over to the generic so we don't have to pay like twice as much as we're supposed to because of weird insurance things. So hooray saving money!

Day 62

We went out to Patrick's parents house for Easter breakfast and to spend the day there. We had Easter-themed pancakes and spring coffee cake and they played some cards while I napped for a bit after breakfast. Then, we all left the house for a while because someone wanted to look at it (it's for sale) in the afternoon.

So we went to their new house to put painter's tape up on the walls/cabinets/etc where things were scuffed and needed to be repainted. I sat and worked on APA-styling my paper's bibliography while pointing out things on the walls in the room I was in to various people as they walked past with the tape.

When we went back, the realtor still hadn't left, so we decided we'd sit in the cars down the street and wait. After they'd been there for 15 more minutes and still shown no signs of leaving, we went to Sonic and got slushies. By then, they were finally gone. So Easter ham making could begin!

Mom and Dad came over for dinner a little after we got back from Sonic. I wasn't super hungry for dinner but ate a little bit of most everything. There was an argument over taxation over dinner, but it was mostly resolved by the introduction of pie for dessert.

Day 61

We went to breakfast with Patrick's family at Katz's and everyone ate way too much food before going out to Cypress for the day. Micaela and I went to mom and dad's while other people went bowling because bowling is dirty and she'd forgotten her inhaler so smoky places would be bad.

Katie came over to visit before she went to Susheela's wedding. It was good to catch up and I wish we lived closer so we could still see each other more often.

Dad made burgers and fed both families after we did egg dyeing. I made an Abby egg and a Lisa egg to celebrate even though they weren't with us. Brett remembers Abby as "the girl with the racist egg family," which I'm sure she'd be happy to hear :)

Worked on my paper a bunch and only need to finish the bibliography now.

Day 60

I woke up and my back felt much, much better, still a bit sore but nothing like yesterday. The APN did a full check over of me while I got my vidaza shot (last one!) and had them take some blood cultures to check for infections. I got a prescription for some antibiotics, and they let me go home with a warning to come back to the ER if my fever gets high again - it was close to normal when they took it this morning.

We were halfway home when we got a call from the hospital saying they'd broken my lab bottles and that I had to come back and do it all again. Was annoying.

I have a paper due Saturday for class but since I've been doing so much sleeping from feeling bad and the vidaza I got an extension until Monday.

Day 59

Went to the hospital like normal today and didn't have any problems, but this afternoon my back started hurting really bad in spurts. It'd go away for a while, and then spasm in pain for a bit and then go away again. Not sure why, since I haven't done anything weird that could make me pull anything.

Went to dinner with Patrick's family but I started feeling so badly that we ended up leaving early. My fever was pretty high but not high enough to go to the hospital (but right on the cusp), so I went to sleep pretty early. We'll talk to the APN tomorrow and hope things get better.

Day 58

More vidaza! And since it's day 3 of shots, we got to sit around for a LONG time waiting for my labs to come back for them to give the pharmacy the OK to make the shots before I could be seen. If your counts are too low or your kidneys/liver look too bad, they won't give you the shot, but I was fine. It just took them like 2 1/2 hours to realize that.

Schoolwork has really been picking up, so hopefully I'll be able to keep managing it okay.

Day 57

Another vidaza shot today. It's the last not-bad one until the next round, as I only have two arms but five shots, and then I get shots on top of shots and that makes my arms really sore for like a week.

Mom came down for game night but took me to work instead of sitting with me, since I couldn't go last Thursday from the transfusion. The office looks so much different without the hundreds of gala things everywhere! Had an ice cream sundae on the way home to put on the pounds, but I don't think it'll help much.

Day 56

Today was the start of the vidaza and a pentamadine day as well, so I was not planning on having it be a pleasant day. I ended up having another (mild) allergic reaction to the pentamadine - getting all red and blotchy but not itchy - so they gave me some steroids to help. But it did mean spending a lot of time at the hospital.

Day 55

We went out to Patrick's parents' house today and spent some time with his grandparents. We also went to look at their new house since I hadn't seen it before. It's really close to the Lakewood Forest tea room, so it'll be easy for me to find it when they move.

I have a few little bitty bits of hair coming back! And they're maybe blonde - it's too early to tell, but they're definitely not black.

Day 54

Patrick went out this morning to spend time with his grandparents, who came to visit for a while. Dad came to sit with me so I wouldn't be alone, and we watched a bunch of History channel documentaries on food until Ivy and Kim came by after the races. It was good to see them since I haven't seen either of them really since I got sick. I got to say hi to Kim at Claire's wedding, but I was busy during most of the reception doing bridal party stuff and not mingling as much as I could have been.

Apparently Brown sucked this year, which is sad. But at least Will Rice didn't sweep. Hooray GSA!

Our Iolanthe auditions were this afternoon, and I did okay, not great, and Patrick thinks he did terribly, though I'm sure he's just being hard on himself. We still get to be in the chorus if we didn't make leads, so it's all good no matter what happens.

We went out to dinner at Marini's with Patrick's family. It was super tasty and I haven't had it in a while, though I think his grandparents, who are from Minnesota and don't generally have much South American food, didn't really know what to think of empanadas.

Day 53

Alayne, Eric, and Erin came to visit me this morning! Alayne and Eric were in town for Beer Bike weekend. It was fun to catch up with them. Mom came by a little later and picked up some stuff to take to Pope John for me, since I didn't make it into work last night because of the transfusion that took forever.

We went to the Galleria for me to try on some clothes before I bought them online and I got a good amount of walking in. We also got a good amount of liquids in me because we stopped at the Sonic in the food court and got half-price slushes, and Patrick convinced me I needed a large. So getting closer to getting 2-3 liters a day!

Day 52

Today was spent ALL DAY back and forth to MD Anderson because they decided to give me a blood transfusion. Even though my hemoglobin was 8.2, which isn't technically below the level where they give me transfusions, the nurse that was filling in for my normal nurse decided to give me one anyways, just in case it fell over the weekend. Never mind that it'd been between 8.4-8.7 for like 3 weeks so it probably wouldn't fall below 8 in three days. She tells us it'll take a couple of hours to get blood up from the blood bank, so we can go home and they'll call me when it's ready.

As soon as we get home, we get a call from the ATC saying that they didn't have a blood type test recent enough for them to use, so I needed to come back to the hospital, have them draw the blood to test, and then I could go home again and wait because the test would take about 4 hours to run. I finally started getting my transfusion around 8 pm. So we used up our whole parking chip for the day and spent WAY too much time there. Hopefully this is the only transfusion they're going to make me get from now on.

Day 51

Today I spent a lot of time doing work for school (Pope John) and school work (Gonzaga). And I did a lot of reading. Not much else.

Day 50

I'm halfway through my hundred days! Mom visited while Patrick went to game night tonight.

Day 49

This morning at like 4 am I woke up and suddenly had to get sick. I ended up getting sick three times in the morning before mom and I went to my appointment and once in the ATC. Aside from the nausea though, I'm doing well and the doctors are happy. I finally saw MY doctor, who was back from vacation or a conference or wherever he was, and he's starting the vidaza shots back up next week. So I'm on the plan and that's good.

Day 48

Today was a lazy Sunday for the most part. When Patrick's mom came to clean, we got the costumes out of the way and into their van so they could be moved to the storage unit. Debbie sat with me while Patrick went to the Iolanthe sing through - apparently for the second time there were way more guys than girls, so maybe we'll have lots of spaces for new girls this year. I wonder if some of the older women who were nearing the chorus retirement age are leaving this year since we're not allowed to wear kneepads when we kneel because they won't be hidden under the fairy costumes. I guess we'll find out once rehearsals start.

I took my grammar test for the writing course they signed me up for with my grad school class. I got a high enough score so that I get to skip to the end of the course and just write the final essay instead of having to do all the exercises and quizzes and such in between. It was a really stupid test though - one of the questions was this:

Which sentence is punctuated correctly?

The teacher stood at the door and called her students' names.
The teacher stood at the door and called her students names.

Both of those are correctly punctuated sentences! Just in one, it's a really crappy teacher calling her kids fat and butthead and the other one's the "right" answer where she's shouting for Jimmy and Billy and Mary and so on.

Claire came over to visit tonight while Patrick went over to her and Jack's place for gaming. It was fun because I haven't actually seen her since I went into the hospital.

Day 47

Today we went to IKEA to get a clothing rack to hang up the exploded closet's RLOS costumes (we woke up one morning this week and found that the shelf/rod had pulled out of the wall and everything was all over the floor). It wasn't very busy, which was good, though there were a lot of kids proportionate to the number of people. I guess it's a kid-friendly store? We ended up finding what we wanted fairly easily, which is nice since sometimes it's a giant maze.

Then we took them to Patrick's parents house because the racks (one for us, one for them) are going into their new storage unit they're renting while they declutter their house to put it on the market, as they've decided to move. They're not going far, but the subdivision they're moving into is a bit nicer and the house has a better floor plan - most of the bedrooms on the first floor - which means whenever Patrick's grandparents come to stay, his parents don't have to move to the guest room upstairs because his grandmother can't use stairs. Patrick helped his dad move some boxes around while I sat and got my magnesium/fluids infused.

We went to visit my parents too and had a game night. We played bananagrams and duck duck go and I got fed steak and onion potatoes and really good pineapple and canteloupe and strawberry yogurt pie and it was fun to be able to go somewhere other than home or the hospital for more than just a little bit. Patrick's parents were going to join us, but they got distracted by yardwork and decided to be party poopers.

Day 46

The home health started today, which basically means that the home health services pharmacy is giving me my iv fluids the days that I'm not at the hospital instead of the hospital pharmacy. I like it better this way because they deliver and their iv bags are in pressurized bottles instead of needing to use the beeping pump from the hospital. So it's easier and quieter. I also can walk around a lot more easily when I'm on the bottle ivs because there's only one thing to hold - the hospital pump and bag are separate and difficult to maneuver around with.

I've been doing gala things on and off all day - it's tomorrow! Hopefully everything works out well. The chairs seemed stressed but positive and happy, so I think things will go all right.

Bobby and Sarah came to visit tonight after dinner, which was fun as I hadn't seen either of them in a while. Dad was here because he had brought me dinner and was sitting with me while Patrick went to the Candide-didn't-happen cast party (the Candidn't party, for short). It's always kind of funny when I have visitors while one of my parents is here because I don't remember who they've met and who they haven't.

Day 45

The big exciting thing for today was going in to work in the evening after everyone had gone home (or so I thought) and ending up sitting with the gala chairs as they worked on their last minute auction-item-sorting and I did my data entry. It was nice to sit for a couple of hours at work with people around even if I needed to wear my mask the whole time.

I saw a different doctor today since mine's been out of town for a couple of weeks. She was nice, but only sees people in the afternoons so I got to sleep in a bit before my appointment, which was pushed back to around 1 instead of the usual between 9-10. My platelets are totally normal now! And my hemoglobin stopped falling - it's the same as Monday at 8.4, so hopefully it'll start going up as well and I'll be out and back and ready to go places/do things soon.

Day 44

On the days that I don't go anywhere it's hard to remember what I did. Really today all I did was check up on some stuff for my class, do some work, and watch the new episodes of South Park and Ugly Americans. I half-watched some Simpsons with Patrick, as he's been going through and watching them on DVD, but I don't like it as much as he does. There are some really good ones, and lots of them are funny, but I'm not interested in watching like 10 episodes in a row.

I had potato skins with bacon on them for dinner, so hopefully that'll make Jeffrey's blood grow better.

Day 43

Spent a long time doing last-minute gala stuff today, especially since I did the long setup call with Auction Star. I didn't really do much else.

We got our 3DS in the mail today (we used our Costco bonus to buy one for us instead of keeping borrowing Brett's) so Patrick's been playing around with it a lot.

Day 42

Mom took me to the hospital again today, and we were still out all day even though we were done with the ATC entirely by noon. It took 2 hours of waiting before I could get my dressing changed in infusion therapy for some reason. Then Mom and I were starving so we stopped off at Buca di Beppos for a fully-cooked, garnish-free lunch. If you go at 3 pm on a weekday, there's hardly anyone there!

I started work for class today; just a little bit of reading (I probably should have read more) and I did my "introduction" on the discussion board. I had a bit of a problem trying to find a "recent, professional picture" as I haven't really been taking any pictures sans-mask recently and the ones that I have (like Claire & Jack's wedding or the family Christmas picture) aren't particularly professional. I ended up using the auditions headshot from Patience two years ago, so I still look like I have lots of long blonde hair. I figure since I probably won't actually be meeting anyone in person for the class they won't know the difference.

Barnes & Noble emailed me back and let me know that they'd refunded the money to my gift card so I could re-buy Moby-Duck in English, but that there wasn't any way for them to take the Spanish one back, so I get to keep it for free. I guess I can use it to help me learn nautical terms in Spanish, just in case I ever get stuck on an El Salvadorian fishing vessel.

Day 41

Allie came over to visit today while Patrick was at game night. It was really fun to catch up since I haven't seen her since around Thanksgiving. We watched some Frozen Planet and adorable penguins and polar bears and caught up. Apparently since her parents live in Katy and her family's Catholic, her mom had heard about the drama at Pope John earlier so I filled her in on the short version for her to tell her parents.

Went to Kroger while Patrick's mom vacuumed; they're mostly done with construction now so I was good to go.

Day 40

Mom came over to sit with me this afternoon while Patrick went out and finished doing our taxes with his dad in Cypress. We went to Crate and Barrel in the Highland Village to get a shower present for Allie, who's coming to visit tomorrow, and didn't realize that there's apparently now an Apple store next door. Which had huge crowds. Because something called the iPad 3 came out yesterday. So I got in my exercise, walking a few blocks to/from the store after we parked in the neighborhood.

I started reading for my classes, which start Monday, and realized that one of the books I bought to read for fun while I was buying my textbooks I accidentally bought in Spanish. So I tried emailing Barnes & Noble to see if they'd swap out the books so I can actually read it. We'll see if they let me.

Day 39

I had visitors! Lauren, Mikey, Jack, Jeff, and Evil Eye came over after Friday celebration and dinner to sit and talk. It was nice and almost like normal, even since they went to Mongolian Hot Pot for dinner beforehand and I wouldn't have gone to dinner there anyways since it's sort of buffet-ish and I'm not a fan of their vegetable options. We did a lot of talking about Mass Effect 3 since everyone but me and Jack have been playing it and I've been at least watching Patrick's game mostly, so there was a lot of "what happened when you did _______" because the choices you made in your first two games (1 and 2) affects what happens and who the characters in the missions are.

I got sick all of a sudden for the first time in over a week (I don't count the pentamadine because I know why that happened) tonight. I think it was the potstickers because the last time I got sick I had eaten potstickers for dinner too. Maybe I won't have those again for a while.

I did get fruits with big rinds/skins back, though, so I've been eating cantaloupe all this week. It's very good. Especially because I hadn't eaten it for so long, and I had been eating it like candy before the listeria scare. And then I stopped for a long time.

I've been worrying about the gala at school not going well, so much that I've been having dreams about weird things going wrong. Like everyone deciding to show up on Sunday instead of Saturday, or the athletics director accidentally booking a basketball game at the same time (never mind that the basketball season ended like a month ago) and the moms get into a fight over who gets to use the gym. I'm assuming since the parents aren't worrying over email or asking me any questions that it's all going okay.

Day 38

My hemoglobin keeps dropping and I'm not really sure if there's anything I can do about it. The nurse didn't seem to think there was anything in particular that I could do. I'll just keep eating as much as I can, I guess, and cross my toes.

We didn't do much today, and I went to bed earlier than I have been, though I got distracted by a Chopped episode where everything in the basket was leftovers. It's amusing to watch chefs go crazy over what to do with already-made items.

Day 37

Patrick's mom came over to visit with us a bit today as she's on her spring break and was down near us anyways. After my fluids finished and rush hour was over, Patrick drove me out to school so I could do some work at my desk and check on things. It was nice to seem normal and do work, even if I was there from like 7-8 pm. The whole office is covered in gala items, including a giant painting of a pirate ship (which I'm not sure why anyone would have, but cool, I guess), so that seems to be going well.

Day 36

Today I slept in until 11:30. I think getting lots of sleep is good for me, even though it messes with my pills and food scheduling. I feel a lot better today than I did yesterday, though I also don't have pentamadine in my system anymore.

My foot hurts less, too, which is good, since Lyn the APN didn't know what would have caused my foot to hurt and since it wasn't bone she couldn't say "oh, you might have a fracture, let's get an xray."

Watched Patrick play a lot of Zelda and watched the new episodes of Top Gear/Top Shot. I am quite a fan of History Channel's "Top Tuesdays." Mom and Brett came over to visit tonight while Patrick was going to be at game night, but it got cancelled so they ended up just sitting with me while Patrick went to the sorta-under-construction Kroger instead.

Day 35

Mom took me to the hospital again today so Patrick could go to work - Monday is meetings day. We got to the ATC and I had a surprise pentamadine day! Which sucks because it always makes me sick. It's to prevent some specific kind of pneumonia that transplant people often get, though I didn't get it last time and I'm not sure if it's because of the medicine or if I was healthy.

We went to Target after the hospital to get me some chicken broth and more juice and bandaids, since we'd run out, and a little boy saw me and shouted "it's a monster!" So I wiggled my fingers at him. Apparently even polka dot hats don't take away from the scariness of the mask.

The HGS board meeting was tonight and Tim was nice enough to skype me in so I could listen to people complain about change for an hour and then watch them eat cake balls without me. It was nice to know what's going on though, and that I haven't missed a bunch since I haven't gone to a meeting since January, and even then I was late because I got lost and went to the wrong house.

Day 34

I dislike the spring time change. Everything's really off for me in terms of sleeping/pills/timing/etc since I slept in late. Woke up at what I felt like was 10:30ish but was actually 11:30 and didn't get myself out of bed and up until almost noon. Which means my pills were taken late and my fluids started pretty late and I ate breakfast at noon, lunch around 3:30 and was not hungry at all for dinner. I think I managed to eat enough but it definitely wasn't 3 normal meals, more like 2 meals and 2 snacks.

Mom came over while Patrick went to game night and we watched some Hoarders to make ourselves feel better about ourselves and our laziness re: cleaning before giving up on tv and watching Blue Planet on bluray, which is really pretty. I want a pet dumbo octopus. Next week I'll be watching the newest in the series, Frozen Planet, and probably feeling sorry for penguins and polar bears.

Pope John's spring break starts tomorrow, so I'll be able to go in and check a few things out for the gala later this week when no one's there. Gonzaga's term also starts tomorrow, so I should be getting more work from them! I ordered my books and they're on their way and it feels like it's really starting now.

Day 33

Didn't do too much today. Slept in, read a bit, watched Patrick play a bunch of Zelda and Mass Effect. We stayed inside pretty much all day because of the thunderstorms, and ended up not actually going to the bank like we'd planned.

Day 32

One of the big things that I don't really notice when I'm in quarantine is weather. Unless it's a day like today with lots of thunder and lightning, it could be cold or hot or rainy or sunny and I wouldn't really know about it. We don't really go anywhere except on hospital days, and even the small times Patrick leaves to take out the trash or get the mail, I'm far enough away from the door I don't feel the temperature outside.

It was really thundery today though, and I could hear the rain enough outside that I didn't even feel bad at all about the fact that I was missing Friday celebration at Rice - even if I'd been healthy, we probably would have stayed home.

I've finished the second of two books this week - The Red Pyramid, the first book in the Kane Chronicles series by Rick Riordan. It's the same guy who wrote the Percy Jackson books, but these are about the Egyptian gods and mythos, which makes it better for me. Not that I like Egypt more than Ancient Greece, but it's just that I don't know hardly any of the mythology behind Egypt, and so the book was much less predictable. One of the Percy Jackson books was sort of a modernization of the Odyssey, which I've read multiple times, so it was easier to guess what happened next. I've got its sequel, so I'll probably start on that pretty soon, and the third book in the trilogy is supposed to come out either this month or next, so I'll make sure that one of our trips out when my counts are up is to go to Barnes & Noble and get it.

My hemoglobin's been slowly falling over the past couple weeks. I think Jeffrey wants some bacon.

Day 31

Today was another hospital day, and it was full of waiting because they closed two of MD Anderson's 5 ATCs for renovations on Monday, making the ones that stayed open (including the stem cell one I go to every day I'm there) take on extra patients. Hopefully I won't be going there long enough to see the newly renovated ones because they're going to be closed until next January.

The phlebotomist was careless today and might have introduced an infection into my line when she was working on drawing blood. She alcohol-wiped off my yellow line and then turned to grab a syringe to draw blood out of it, but when she turned back she attached it to my red line instead, which she hadn't sterilized. I wasn't paying close enough attention to stop her before she got it on, but I corrected her as soon as I noticed, which was probably only a few seconds, but still. It'd be really annoying to get an infection and end up in the emergency room because someone was careless. I told the ATC nurses about it and they changed the caps on my lines to help stop an infection from growing if some bacteria or something had attached to the plastic inside, and they basically told me that unless I start having symptoms, there's nothing they can do about it because they wouldn't know what drugs to give me. Hopefully nothing happens from this.

Day 30

I'm in the thirties now! And I've been okay for the past few days in terms of eating and drinking and such. I gained at least one pound since my appointment on Monday, which is good. I need probably about five more pounds to get to where I want to be but it's at least a start in the right direction. Not throwing up for the past few days helps, I'm sure.

I ordered awesome light green shoes for Jeff and Lauren's wedding today. I'm quite excited - they should match my hat. http://www.zappos.com/product/7921101/color/159512

Day 29

Being able to stay at home and do my fluids helps a lot with me feeling better during the day, because I get to sleep in later than 7:30. Slept in until about 10 today which caught me up on sleep pretty well. I did end up still taking a nap around 10:30ish at night, when I should have been heading to bed, but was distracted by Colbert and fell asleep during one of the commercials.

I feel like I haven't been communicating that well with people at school, but I'm also not sure if they have anything to tell me anyways. So who knows what's happening, really? Things seem to be going okay even though I'm not there, though I'm sure they'd be going better if I was there.

We've been watching lots of Top Gear on Netflix and are almost through with the episodes they've got on demand. We'll need to find another show to watch soon. I'm going to vote for Warehouse 13.

Day 28

Today I spent all day with Mom at the hospital. We got there around 8:20 for my blood test and left around 4 after getting my dressing changed. We then took the scenic route home and drove by Rice to see the azaleas since I missed spring last year from being in the hospital for all of March and I went in during winter and got out and it was already summer.

Dr. Delima is happy with me but wants me to gain a couple of pounds and eat more, which is really everyone's goal for me right now so it's okay. I'm working on eating and getting a bit better.

Blood counts for today were hemoglobin 9.7, white cells 2.9, platelets 86.

Day 27

Today I went on my second excursion to places that aren't home/MD Anderson with a trip to Randall's for ice cream while Patrick's mom vacuumed at our place. She's been nice to help come once a week and do heavy-duty cleaning so our place stays really nice and sanitary and so Patrick has less to do since taking care of me is kind of annoying and like taking care of a kid that's totally capable of doing everything themselves, just won't. I'm avoiding the kitchen and bathrooms as much as possible to minimize my exposure to germs, but that also means no cooking for myself and no doing my own dishes and etc.

We discovered when we got home that one of the smells that brings on my nausea is cigarette smoke, which we did't notice the first time since I don't really spend time around any smokers. Someone had been smoking outside in our complex's parking lot though, and I managed to walk right through the smoke cloud.

Mom sat with me tonight while Patrick went to game night and reminded me that I hadn't put in my blog that I got into graduate school. It starts next week and I'm going to be getting my master's in communications from Gonzaga online. Hopefully this will be a way to make sure I do something useful with all of my time at home in quarantine.

Day 26

I keep having the issue of waking up in the middle of the night, starving. Which doesn't make any sense because I go long periods of time during the day and never have this problem - it wakes me up because I'm so hungry it hurts, and then I feel like I'm going to throw up, which doesn't help anything, because then I just need anti-nausea drugs and can't eat anything anyways. I've taken to drinking protein shakes early in the morning and taking a zofran with them to make sure I feel okay to get up.

Dad and I watched some hgtv renovation shows this afternoon, which made me want to live in a new house and make it all pretty and decorated the way I want. Moving while still doing treatment would probably be a no-no. Patrick went out to his parents to finish work on the cabinet doors.

Got some reading done today, but I still have tons more books to go through.

Day 25

I'm one quarter done with my hundred days! Which means one-quarter done with being babysat and hopefully one-quarter done with having my line in.

Today, even though I didn't have an ATC appointment, I still went to the hospital for my first after-transplant bone marrow biopsy. This time they let me have the full dose of versed, which was good because they needed to take a bone chip for these tests and not just the normal marrow goop. The bone chip takes a bigger needle... I think. They do it on the back of my hip and so I am lying on my stomach and don't see what they're doing back there, but it feels like they have something big and drill-like for the bone chip part.

I am now sore from the poke and it's uncomfortable to do lots of walking and turning, so I'll be watching lots of tv this weekend, I think.

Mom took Patrick and me out to lunch today after my bone marrow test, which counts as the first time I've been out to eat AND the first time I've been somewhere not home or the hospital since I went into the hospital in January. We went to Raising Cane's because everything there's fried so I can eat it pretty safely. I sat in the corner booth hiding from people and enjoyed being out, but didn't really fully enjoy it as I was still doped up on the versed. BUT I did eat pretty well and I was super proud of my eating prowess, even if I didn't finish the whole meal.

Dad's coming over tomorrow to sit with me while Patrick runs errands. I'm missing Claire and Jack's congrats-you-haven't-killed-each-other-yet party, but Claire said she might come visit me sometime this weekend and bring over the David Tennant Much Ado, which would be quite enjoyable.

Day 24

Went in for my second ATC trip of the week today, and saw the APN and pharmacist again, who are both really nice and told me that I'm doing okay enough to only have to come in twice a week (Mondays and Thursdays) and I can do my fluids at home the other days.

I wonder when my hair will start to come back. My head hasn't quite figured out what to do with itself yet temperature-wise. I'll go from being too hot with a hat on to too cold without one and end up just wearing the hat and then occasionally taking it off and fanning my head off with it. It's especially annoying when sleeping though because not only does my head not know what to do with itself, hats come off by themselves on my pillow.

I got sick again today after we got home and spent the afternoon napping and finishing up the grant application for work that was due. I hope my stomach figures out what to do with itself soon so I can start gaining weight back. I weighed myself tonight and was 112, which is TOO SMALL. I need at least 5 more pounds. My hips and such are poking out too much and I feel like they're going to break if I run into something.

Day 23

Was a little sick today. Mom came to sit with me while Patrick went to work for the day.

I have a grant due tomorrow night for school so I have to work on that now.

Day 22

We didn't have to go to the hospital today! We had the at-home infusion pump, which was a bit hard to remember how to work, but was way less obnoxious and time consuming than getting to the hospital and dealing with people and traffic and what. Probably less germy too.

Mom came over and brought pot roast for dinner and then Dad walked over from work and had dinner with us. It was tasty.

Day 21

It doesn't seem like it's been three weeks since the transplant, but it also seems like it's been way longer in some ways. Probably mainly because when you're not going anywhere or doing anything, the days all run together.

Dr. Delima came to visit me in the ATC and told me I was doing well and he was proud of me, and it means I get to stay at home and get my fluids through the home pump, so I don't have to go back to the hospital until Thursday! It's exciting.

Day 20

Sundays at the hospital are really empty. They shut down all the escalators and nearly everything is closed and dark. Just the transfusion centers and labs for people who need daily monitoring or are getting chemo are open.

We watched a bunch of animal planet this morning while I was getting my fluids/magnesium in the ATC because if you try watching tv before 8 am, a surprising number of channels are still playing infomercials, whereas animal planet was showing "dogs 101" and just giving information about random breeds of dog. Which then made Patrick look at what dogs the SPCA has up for adoption and really just want to get one, though we don't really have a good setup for a pet in our current place and pets are on my no-no list right now because they could bring germs.

Patrick's parents came down to visit and brought down dinner (chicken and dumplings for easy chewing and lots of protein) and his mom sat with me for a bit while Patrick went to Costco. Sadly they didn't have any of the frozen crepes that we got before I went in, because I think I could have eaten a bunch of those and gained back some weight faster. I'm technically only down about 5 pounds, but I can tell that a good chunk of that is muscle/fat from how my skin fits my arms and legs now. If I bend them the right way I look sort of wrinkly and elephantish, which is a strange thing to feel.

Day 19

Today we had a super early appointment which made us very tired (though Patrick more than me, since I slept through most of my infusion and he didn't) but we were home and done with the hospital by about 11:30.

Dad came and sat with me for the afternoon while Patrick went out to his parents' to plug our numbers into Turbo Tax. Brett was home from UT for the weekend and he swung out for a visit for a bit before he went out to dinner with Emily. It's kind of annoying having to be babysat but it does mean that I get to see people more often.

Itching much better today.

Day 18

Itching is better, but it kept me up all night so I was super sleepy and napped a lot all day randomly when I could get some sleep. So after my blood draw in the morning I slept until lunch, then went to get my infusion and napped a bit in the waiting room.

The APN and pharmacist came to see me and make sure everything was fine. Since the only complaint I had was that I was itchy, and I didn't have a rash, they just told me to look for problems and tell the nurses when I came in if anything happened over the weekend.

My platelets are above 50 today but they're going to wait for a couple of days to see what they do before I restart the shots for the blood clot.

Day 17

I'm at home! And I'm suddenly very itchy. I don't have any rashes or anything, but my arms and back are super itchy and it's hard to not scratch/rub at it. Hopefully I'll go to sleep and wake up in the morning and everything'll be fine.

I've been able to eat way more today - I think it's just easier to eat at home than in the hospital, even when I had food brought in from outside.

Going to the ATC tomorrow to keep getting fluids/antibiotics/etc. Hope everything keeps going well.

ITCHY.

Day 16

They started me on the pill tacro tonight because I'm scheduled to go home tomorrow. I got a visit from the pharmacist to talk about what drugs I have at home, though I'm not sure why, because the doctors haven't decided what drugs they're going to send me home with yet. He's coming back tomorrow with my actual prescriptions/medicines.

My night nurse yesterday told me she was really glad I was getting to go home because she was really worried when I had my fever last week that it wouldn't go well. I guess they were maybe more worried than they let on, but I'm glad my infection passed and I'm looking better now. She told me she has a daughter that's my age, so maybe she was just thinking about her own daughter and how she wouldn't want her to have a 103 degree fever.

She also told me that I don't complain enough and so that's how she knew that I was really sick when I had the fever because I was complainy and unhappy.

White count is 5.5 today! So, exciting = me going home and me having cells.

Day 15

Today we were awoken by guys cleaning our windows outside. They were on little swings dangling from the top of the building and held themselves still with giant suction cups. So we were awoken by "thud! squeak! thud! squeak!" for the suction cups and the squeegees. I was not amused.

The book volunteers came by today and gave me a free book to read and take home. I got a Nicholas Sparks book I hadn't read yet and some YA novel about summer romance, which I expect to be very stupid but probably a good waste of an afternoon.

They lifted the required contact isolation today since my white cells are up to 2.2, though I told them to leave the sign on the door for the volunteers, as some of them don't bother to do things like wash their hands. Or not go into sick people's rooms if they're sneezing.

Day 14

Today was full of napping. My platelets were high enough that I don't need a transfusion today, which was happy.

The doctor thinks I might be able to go home on Thursday, which is exciting. White count is up to 1.3, so slowly but surely going up. I want it to suddenly be like, 5, though I don't think it will be.

Day 13

Did a lot of sleeping this morning since I went to bed so late last night and couldn't sleep well. The benadryl before the platelet transfusion helped. I'd like my platelets to come back up so I can stop having transfusions of them so often. I've had one almost every day for a week.

Lauren and Laura came to visit this afternoon, which was fun because I haven't gotten to see many people in a while. Apparently my room's gotten harder to get to since I came in because they're doing work on the floors and have random bits of hallway closed up.

I've eaten real food today and not had problems, so hopefully people will stop bugging me to eat, though I don't think they will. I know I should be eating more, but it's really hard to eat when your stomach thinks it's full already.

My white count is 1 today, so working its way into the right order of magnitude for me being healthy. Hopefully it means the infection (if I had one) is gone and that I'll be able to go home soon.

Day 12

Today's Patrick's birthday, so the moms got together and planned a surprise birthday celebration with our families here at the hospital. He wasn't expecting it, so I think it was fun.

Dad sat with me during the day and we determined that there's nothing on tv on Saturdays at the hospital. Last week we watched the Top Shot marathon, but this week the marathon on History Channel was all Hitler, which I didn't want to watch.

Still no fever.

Day 11

Today was one of my better days in probably the past week - didn't feel like being sick, was well-rested after sleeping in this morning, and my face is now only half swollen. I ate a lot better today, too, even if I haven't really been eating full meals. They ask me every morning (generally while I'm still rather groggy) what I ate the day before, and I always feel like I'm not telling them enough, though sometimes I forget things and they will remind me because they can see the empty milk carton or whatever on the room service tray.

Today was two cartons of milk, a protein shake, a cup of cheerios, half a cup of soup, and some sugar snap peas. Which sounds like I'm starving myself, but all the medicine has made me have to force myself to eat because I'm rarely ever even hungry and usually food seems unpleasant.

Yesterday, I forgot to mention that some people from child psychiatrics came to see me and make sure that I was doing ok and didn't need to talk to anyone. It was nice and good, but they definitely came in while my nurse was in the room messing with my lines and poking me and I wasn't really paying attention to them much. Also they didn't seem to know when my transplant was going to be, because they mentioned me having someone to talk to before it happened. I think they were students and maybe I got lost in the shuffle somewhere, as I am not really a kid and not really an adult. Luckily, I have family and friends and support and etc. and don't need their services, so I'm doing all right.

They're still giving me tons of antibiotics but at a slower rate, since I haven't had a fever in a while, which is nice, but it means when they don't time things right, I have tons of medicine running into me all at once and the iv pole won't have it. Today they had to temporarily add a second pump because the pumps can't handle more than 4 tubes at once, and I needed 5 - two for the tacro (anti-rejection drug), one for an antibiotic, one for my fluids/electrolytes, and one for the last dose of the mini-chemo. I'm down to fewer stuff now, but at one point this morning I had what seemed like twenty bags of stuff running into me all at once. I needed another platelet transfusion again today, bringing my total platelet transfusion count for this round up to 4, which seems higher than last time.

My white cell count is .2 today, double what it was yesterday, but still rather small. Go up, cells, go up!

Day 10

My fever finally started to go away today. It's probably going to be okay, but they still had to take a chest x-ray today to make sure I don't have pneumonia. They haven't mentioned anything about it to me yet, but I'm sure that if it DID look like I had pneumonia, they would have brought in a ton more drugs and such.

My hair is now pretty much completely gone - it went a lot faster than last time. Or maybe last time I'd just been slowly losing it over the course of 2-3 months and so I didn't notice it so suddenly. We've had to lint-roller off my pillows/bed like 3 times today and probably will need at least one more time. At one point this afternoon I was missing the hair at the front of my head and not the back so Patrick was teasing me about having the weirdest mullet ever. I got even with him by shedding everywhere and making him lint-roller it up.

The nurse overheard us talking about me losing my hair and kept telling me that I look beautiful. I'm not really worried about it, and I know that right now I look really weird. But I also know that it's temporary. Eventually my chipmunk swelling will go away and my mouth/cheeks will stop looking lopsided and that'll be fine. Hopefully it'll be soon, because it'll be easier to eat normally when that happens. My hair will (please!) grow back eventually and maybe in a more different color again.

I went walking for the first time in two days this evening and my calves were hurting the entire time like I'd exercised them TOO MUCH already. I wonder if they got a huge workout during the shivering?

Day 9

Today was spent shivering uncontrollably because with the high fever came chills. Apparently the doctors aren't too worried though, which is good. My doctor came and visited me today and he's happy with how I'm doing.

Day 8

I finally got the fever today. Around midnight they took my vital signs and I had a fever of 102 and so they started pumping me full of Tylenol and antibiotics and took a bunch of blood cultures to check me for infections.

My hair started falling out in huge clumps. I don't really want to lose it again.

Today was two bags of blood and a bag of platelets. I can't wait for my counts to come back.

Day 7

I'm apparently astonishing the doctors because I haven't run a fever yet. So hooray? My mouth is all swollen up and I feel like a chipmunk. Or maybe what people look/feel like when they have their wisdom teeth out - I wouldn't know, I never had mine removed.

I went through all day without really getting sick, which is exciting. I guess all the throwing up I did in the middle of the night last night fulfilled today's quota. Side note - if all you have in your stomach is a cheese stick and fruit punch gatorade, it will look like you're throwing up bloody teeth.

I did some work today and am kind of worried after hearing some of the things that are happening at school that I'll get back and not recognize anything. Or that I just won't be allowed back at all. Nothing I can do about it really.

Day 6

Patrick's dad came and sat with me for the day today and I feel kind of bad because not too long after he came, they gave me a platelet transfusion with the Benadryl and then I slept for like 5 hours.

I have a funny bumpy sore sort of on my gums between my back molars, which I think is why it hurts to try and open my mouth. I've been eating lots of liquid foods because of it. I sent Mom to find me the most high-calorie chicken broth the store had so I could drink my calories, and apparently there is no such thing as high-calorie chicken broth. Everything was either 99% or 100% fat free. So we're going to buy a giant pack of ramen and just use the flavor packets in water because they aren't trying to be health-conscious.

My white cell count today was 0, so hopefully it'll start going up soon! The doctor seems to think that my mouth won't feel better/start to heal until my white count recovers.

Day 5

Did pretty well today. Watched almost the entire last season of Top Shot with Dad. History Channel had a marathon on it since the new season's starting up this week. I'll have Tuesdays full of fun shows now, since Top Shot and Top Gear are on back to back, and Tosh.0 and Key and Peele are also on on Tuesdays too.

Got a balloon from a nurse today. Someone had apparently brought in a bunch of balloons for the patients and when Dad and I were walking she told me to take one because they were floating away. So I have a smiley face floating around my iv pole now.

Day 4

My mouth started hurting today. It's not in the back of my throat this time, yet, which means I can still swallow just fine, but it is hard to open my mouth wide enough to get much in it bigger than cheerios or spoonfuls of soup. I may go onto some sort of all-liquids diet for a while because of this.

My counts have started bottoming out now - platelets low enough to stop my blood thinner shots, and white cells basically gone.

Day 3

Got another dose of the post-transplant chemo today. They keep telling me it shouldn't make me sick because it's such a small dose, but I still get sick from something anyways, so I'm not sure i believe them.

Spent most of the day sleeping because of it.

The arms physical therapist came to visit me this morning early and gave me exercises to do with a resistance band which is basically a giant strip of balloon. I'm afraid I'm going to pull it the wrong way and slap myself in the face.

Day 2

I felt a lot better for most of today. Though I do have a new doctor for this week and she came into my room singing a song at like 9 am after I was trying to finally get some sleep and told me that once I start looking forward to her songs, it's time for me to go home. I know right now I will never be looking forward to her songs, and I'm ready and willing to go home today, even though I know I won't be leaving the hospital for a few more weeks.

Discovered the Face Off on Syfy today, and it's really quite fun to watch. Also impressive to see what counts as "bad" or "untalented" in stage makeup.

My counts are starting to go low now so I'm in the danger zone in terms of infection for the next couple of weeks. Hopefully they'll go up faster now that I'm 100% donor, but I don't really know if that's a thing or not.

Day 1

I was pretty sick and blah all day yesterday. I did get a visit from a physical therapist who told me what I need to do to keep myself healthy while bedridden. Basically I'm supposed to take walks in circles and sit up when I can, which I already knew. She wanted me to go on a 6-minute walk with her but as I was not certain I could manage that without throwing up on her, she had to leave un-walked-with.

They gave me one of the mini-doses of the after-transplant chemo last night which made me pretty unhappy as well, and it took me a really long time to get it because one of the doctors forgot to sign the orders.

Transplant Day: Day 0

Transplant was today. Apparently my room smells funny from the preservatives they used to keep the cells healthy, but I can't actually tell. Patrick and my nurse both commented on it. I guess since the cells are inside me now I'm immune.

Hopefully my stomach will calm down and I'll be able to eat more within the next few weeks and things'll go better than they did last time.

Day -1

Today was my "day of rest" between the chemo and the transplant, but I guess my stomach didn't get the message because I felt worse than I had for the days when I was actively getting chemo, and because of that I couldn't nap like I wanted to. I'm getting so tired because I can't sleep in the hospital very well. I want my own bed at home.

They moved me into a new room across the hall that they uber-sterilized, including waxing the floors and putting in new air vents, in preparation for the transplant. I am glad they take this seriously, but now my room looks out on the St. Luke's helipad and I am finding myself awoken at all hours of the night when a life-flight comes in.

Transplant is tomorrow and I'm kind of scared even though it went well last time. What if something goes wrong this time around?

Day -2

Learned today that my stomach doesn't like me on steroids. There goes my (not at all) lifelong dream of becoming a professional bodybuilder, I suppose.

I should really try to write these at normal times (like in the afternoon) when I'm not all doped up on drugs. I feel like I might then have something meaningful to say, because just mentioning what I've done all day (watch a bunch of Mythbusters and Tosh.0, play words with friends, and nap) is not really that thrilling. Also I'd think before I spoke/typed and maybe be less of a nuisance.

They started me back up on the anti-rejection drugs today so I've got three tubes hanging onto me instead of just the saline one. I'm not really sure why they can't connect to each other like the other drugs on my six-prong iv manifold, but the tacro bags have giant neon green stickers on them that say "TACRO" and "non-pvc tubing required." It seems weird that something would interact with pvc and become a not-functional drug. Or also that they found this out somehow. Or that they can't just give it to me in pill form, which definitely has nothing to do with pvc.

It does mean that one of the tubes is much more flexible than the others and I'm kind of afraid that I'll bend it funny and it'll just start spurting everywhere. Probably because I have this fear it won't happen because I'm paying super close attention to everything line-related. The nurses are all in awe over the pacifier-clip Mom got me to keep my lines secured so hopefully I don't have another stitches problem like during the last transplant, which I think is amusing because it's the pedi floor - and surely they have to do lots of securing things to make sure the kids don't pull/yank/trip and fall and have their IVs come out? One of the kids in the playroom was running around today and his mom was trying really hard to keep up with him pushing his pole so he wasn't pulling it with the IV in his arm.

Day -3

The long chemo started today and it basically ended up with me being REALLY COLD because all I did all morning was eat ice and popsicles for like 3 hours to try and avoid mouth sores. I hope I will actually avoid them because then I'll be able to eat things next week/the week after (I don't really remember when the worst of it was last time).

I'm messing up my sleep schedule something fierce being here. I take naps during the day and then once it comes to being bedtime, I can't actually get to sleep, which makes me stay up super late and then I'm tired and need to take naps and everything starts all over.

One of the other rooms on the floor has a giant sign on the door telling doctors/residents to take off their lab coats before entering - apparently the kid inside is afraid of doctors but only when they have on their white coat and they're easily identifiable as doctors. I'm actually kind of surprised that this is the first time I've seen something like that.

I got sick again tonight and I kind of wonder if I'm going to just start getting worse and worse for the next few weeks before I get better. Hopefully it's just that I've been trying to eat like a normal person and not like someone getting chemo and my stomach is going "crepes from the tea room, really? That's so interesting and complicated! Where are my cheerios??"

Day -4

Today while I was skyping with Kim the activities person asked me if I'd like to set up a meeting with the monster truck drivers from Monster Jam, who were coming to visit with the pedi patients on Friday morning. I decided to let the 8 year old boy down the hall to me get extra time with them, as I have no interest in monster trucks, and honestly, I'm probably older than some of the drivers. Not like you can really have a lifelong career doing that - I bet it's like some other sports and once you hit 30 you're pretty much on the way to retirement.

My hospital wristband has three bar codes on it - one QR code and two normal codes. I wonder why/what they're for, as they haven't scanned any of them yet.

One of my facebook acquaintances posted recently about how her dog has cancer and they don't know what they're going to do or how they'll deal with it. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I know a lot of people are super attached to their pets, and since I don't really remember having anything more complicated than a fish, I never had that myself. But I also kind of feel like she has a toddler and she should be glad it's not her kid that's sick. Every once in a while we'll hear one of the toddlers here screaming and screaming because they're being poked and stuck and in pain and they have no idea what's happening to them. Also, and perhaps I'm super cruel for saying this, she can get a new dog if this one passes. No matter how healthy a dog is, you're going to see it die of sickness or old age because dogs don't live to be like, 50. But I might if my treatments work, and I'd really love to make it, without feeling like I'm less important than an aging family pet.

Day -5

I'm actually writing this a day late because around 8 pm last night I started getting a headache and tried to relax it away, but couldn't. And by the time I tried to get something for it, they had to call the doctors and discuss what I could be given in terms of pain relief that wouldn't mess with my chemo, and it took two hours for them to decide that a dose of Tylenol would be ok. By that time it'd moved into migrane-zone, somewhere that I'd been able to avoid since before I got sick, and it meant that it had become one of those headaches where my body decides that whatever I ate for my last meal was the issue and I had to throw up.

Which caused all sorts of issues because the nurses were all like "oh, you're nauseous, we need to give you some drugs to stop that since it's obviously from the chemo!" No, it's because it takes you two hours to give someone Tylenol, but whatever.

The pediatric activities coordinator lady doesn't know what to do with me. She keeps coming by to ask if I want any games or movies, or bringing me art projects to do. I think the fact that I told her I was technically "at work" and working from the hospital threw her. Possibly because I'm the only patient in pediatrics that has a job at all, much less a job that they're actively performing. Patrick and I are pretty technologically savvy, and we've got netflix running on his tablet and the iPad I got from work, I've got my netbook for work and for Examiner/CBS writing, and lots of other various things and gadgets to occupy me.

Day -6

I have gained five pounds since being admitted. I believe a large amount of it is water weight, as I'm getting pumped full of more than 2000 mL of saline a day, and I'm getting waterlogged from the inside out. Also, I've been trying to eat a ton just in case I can't eat a bunch later.

The benign hematologist came by to talk to me today - apparently the Factor V Leiden allele that I have doesn't really matter if I have it or if Jeffrey has it - since it's only one of the alleles and not both with the mutation, I'm only 7 times more likely to develop a clot, rather than the 100 times more likely than the normal person with the doubly-mutated allele would be. Birth control pills, which tons and tons of people are on all the time, make you about 5 times more likely to develop a clot, so I'm not much worse off than just a generic person on the pill. Also, according to Dr. Oo (which is the most awesome name I've come across at the hospital - who wouldn't want a vowel sound for a last name?), like 10% of white people have this mutation and most just don't know it, so it's really not as big of a deal as we'd thought. My cousins with the disorder probably have the homogeneous mutation (both chromosomes) and that's why they're on the special diet and drugs and everything. Nice to hear "come by in five months and we'll see what to do from there - don't worry about it" coming from a doctor at a place where everything needs to get done NOW to keep disease at bay.

They're letting me change my dosage to one larger shot a day instead of two small shots, which is nice because it's going to cut in half the amount of stabbing my stomach has to take. When they looked at my old injection sites the nurses were all really impressed that I only had one small bruise from the past week and a half or so - apparently patients giving themselves shots usually results with tons of bad bruising. So another thing getting removed from me to use as a reason why I shouldn't be going into nursing/medicine.

I am not very motivated in the hospital to do work. This may be an issue as my boss is now no longer my boss as of 5 p.m. today. I'm going to try to make myself have the magazine done by Friday. We'll see what happens. I answered emails today and sent along a couple of small things, but spent all morning eating popsicles and all afternoon exercising (read: walking in circles around the floor) and napping, since I kept waking up last night to go to the bathroom from the saline or because Patrick was snoring from being on the uncomfortable Murphy bed.

Day -7

This morning I woke up and immediately felt the backs of my hands for forests of cancerous moles. I had a strange dream, full of really bizarre and unrelated concepts as my dreams are wont to do, but the one major thing I remembered from it was that in it, I had sprouted giant moles on the backs of my hands and I was very panicky about it because if I didn't get rid of them soon, I wouldn't be allowed to be admitted for my transplant and it'd get delayed indefinitely. No matter how much I rubbed or scratched at them, they kept growing until my hands looked almost furry.

Well, when I woke up, my hands were perfectly normal. I saw the PA this morning and once they saw that my counts were holding steady they told me to go home and wait for the admissions desk to call me when my room was ready. I don't remember where we were the last time to wait for the admissions people to call, but this time they were faster than I was and called before I'd even finished packing up my stuff for my month-long stay. It was strange packing knowing that they were waiting on me.

I'm in "pediatrics" again this time, though they're renovating the actual pediatric wing so they really just moved up all the cheery artwork and children's amenities (my room has a Wii AND a PS2) to one of the adult floors. So no pedodome. Also no good kitchen - the "family kitchen" is really just a closet with a fridge and microwave in it.

Chemo starts tomorrow, which means popsicles for breakfast!