Student Visionary of the Year


Floyd's Student Visionary of the Year Campaign benefitting the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society has come to a close. His team, "Cancer's Collapse," took first place in the Golden Gate chapter. Thank you to everyone who contributed. You can read about the gala and more in this blog post.


3 Down 3 to Go, Another Town and One More Show

Blogging Tunes: Yes - 90125 (Deluxe Version bonus tracks)

What are you doing this post-Halloween Friday night?  I just got done walking laps around the 4th floor and am now eating (some of) my Salmon/rice/veggies dinner.  I'll give a 5-of-out-10 on the real food scale and maybe 7.5 for hospital food.  Appetite is still pretty good, so should be able to eat most of it.

As far as laps are concerned, it's a much better layout for walking than UCSF -- essentially a big circle with wider hallways -- and I have much more freedom to walk at a good pace since I'm not connected to (and therefore not walking with) the Trans-PAL like I was during induction.

No PICC line or permanent PAL connection, just a temp mini port on my wrist

So what's happening?  Well, three Ara-C infusions completed (Thu AM, Thu PM, and Fri AM) with three to go (Fri PM, Sat AM, Sat PM.) All transfusions are 12 hours apart.  Thu AM started at 11:00a, which means Thu PM was 11:00p and so on.  The hope was to slightly shift the Friday and Saturday schedule such that Sat PM would start closer to 8:00p in hopes that I could actually leave Saturday night.  Doesn't look like that's gonna happen, so Sunday morning it is.

The Ara-C regimen comes with a bunch of stuff including a steroid.  Steroids and I don't really get along but the dosage on all this is quite a bit lower than induction, so it's tolerable.  That said, the third infusion -- combined with the not-so-good sleep last night -- really knocked me out today.  A would-be 30-45 minute nap in the afternoon turned into 4 hours of sleep!  I guess I needed it.  So I got up at about 6pm, did the laps, ate some dinner, and now I have some energy.  After I post this, I'm going to watch the webcast of Set 2 of Phish Halloween -- thanks for the video link, E!

The room here is fabulous.  It's gonna be hard to go back to the cramped quarters of UCSF, but alas, they don't do stem-cell marrow transplants here.

My morning view -- gorgeous

Zoom in of trail (1 of 2)

Zoom in of trail (2 of 2)

Wish I could walk out there, but I'll be home soon enough.  Looking forward to a walk down the Loch Lomond jetty on Sunday.  Who wants to join?

So what's after this?  Some follow up labs next week but hopefully no in-person visits, another bone marrow biopsy on Nov 28 and admission to UCSF on December 9th (Day -7) which puts transplant date (Day 0) on Beethoven's birthday.  My dad would be psyched.  Best case scenario is that I get out of UCSF on December 31st (Day 14), just like I did 11 years ago after my second 1.0 induction.

Then intense recovery -- if you really want to know what it's gonna be like, read that link -- along with two (count 'em) UCSF visits per week through (Day +100.) As I'm 11 years older, and my body has already gone through so much, this recovery is likely going be tougher.  We'll get there... one day at a time.  

iwkia...a

Comments

  1. This Mini-port looks like luxury! So nice they could let you do more stuff between the treatments without the huge pole with the worst wheels (I swear I always imagined the factory making these poles saying "but make sure only to put 2 wheels that get stuck, and 3 that will each pull in a different direction".
    Hope you're home and feeling good. I will be happy to come over to do your local walk with you if you have time (I live in the south peninsula)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Would love to come to Marin and walk with you in the next few weeks JG. Glad things are headed in the right direction.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts