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.