Good evening (well now it is the morning)! I did not expect to be up this late but I wanted to get this posted before I went to bed.
Today (September 13) was our second day of chemo. Same as yesterday. The chemo hit me a little harder today and I definitely experienced some nausea and a worse headache but it was all resolved with anti-nausea medication, Tylenol, and food. After chemo I was feeling quite queasy and very tired and decided to go back to the apartment and take a nap. I didn’t have much of an appetite all morning and afternoon but after an hour or so of napping, Gaby woke me up to tell me I needed to eat something. Thank goodness for her. Seriously. I’m so happy with my decision to hire a local to be my carer. When receiving HSCT in Mexico, a full time carer is required and if you don’t have someone who can go with you, the clinic will provide you with a carer for an extra fee. Money well spent, I say! She’s 26, a nurse, speaks English really well, and is super sweet. After suggesting food options, we agreed that yogurt and fresh berries were a good idea. So delicious. That made my stomach feel a little better and then I was ready to go back to sleep for a little longer before we went down to another patients room for dinner. It was delicious food and wonderful company. The patient and his wife are from Texas and he and I are basically MS twins. We both have 4 year old daughters just a couple day apart and much of our diagnosis and hsct discovery are exactly the same. With a weird disease like MS where everyone’s progression course and symptoms are different, often unseen, and completely unpredictable, it was so nice to talk with him and his wife and have so many “oh my gosh! Me too!” Moments.
After dinner my stomach was pretty much back to normal and now I just have a tiny lingering headache. Not bad!
Tomorrow begins the Filgrastim shots which makes my bone marrow release more stem cells into my blood. I’ll do this for 7 days before a PICC line is inserted (likely into my neck…gross) so I can go through aphresis where my blood is taken out and with the help of a machine and it sorts out the cells that are needed and sends the rest of the blood back to me. Some patients will be able to get this done through their arm veins where blood goes out one arm, is filtered, and then goes back into the other arm. I don’t think I will be so lucky and I’m preparing my mind for needing a PICC line.
Things are moving along nicely and I’m anxiously awaiting the bone pain. It’s a good pain because it means your bones are doing their job and releasing lots of stem cells!! Taking things one day at a time and always looking on the bright side!
The next week will likely be like “Groundhog Day” where each day is like the one before. A shot in the morning and a shot at night. I’ll try to keep up with the videos but please let me know if you have any questions that I can address on here.
Here’s a video update! Until tomorrow, Adiós!
well heck. Now today’s video is upside down!! What in the world! If anyone knows how to rotate videos in WordPress, please feel free to share your knowledge. Gracias.
Adios, MS! 