Day -5//Bone Pain and Earthquakes!

It was a rather uneventful day inside the apartment today but very eventful on the other end of the country! Another earthquake rattled the lower part of Mexico today. It happened to be in the same area that was hit by an earthquake shortly before I arrived here in Monterrey. The city of Puebla was one of the cities that was hit pretty bad and happens to be home to the main hospital that first started doing HSCT here in Mexico. They had so many patients waiting for a treatment date that they opened up this clinic here in Monterrey. Word on the web (technology is amazing) is that the hospital and apartments did not have any damage. 

I just lounged around today which started a little earlier than usual with a doctor coming in to draw blood. While she did that she assessed my arm veins and made the final call that I will be needing a picc line. So I have that scheduled for tomorrow at 2:40CDT. I will have that in for 4 days during aperesis, chemo, and transplant which will be nice because that is less digging around in my arms and hands to find a good vein. I really am dreading getting the picc line placed and having 2 tubes hanging out of my neck for 4 days but I knew this treatment wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. Plus if I did have good arm veins, then during apheresis (like 4 hours!) I would have needles in both arms and would have to be squeezing stress balls the entire time. With the picc line I can relax and sleep the time away. It’s all about finding the silver linings! 

The much anticipated bone pain kicked in this evening. The pain comes and goes in waves of pain in my lower back and hips. It never goes away, it just lessens in intiensity. Reminds me a lot of the contractions I experienced during back labor. Except I had an epidural to look forward to with that! 

This pain is a necessary evil and it honestly is reassuring knowing that the pain is from the shots that make my bones release stem cells. Hopefully this means my veins are just swarming with stem cells ready to be pulled out on Thursday. 
3:15am update. 

I was mistaken. This bone pain is worse than childbirth. I’ve never experienced pain like this before. I’m so glad this is temporary! 

*Repeats over and over and over* “you are strong. You are brave. This is temporary and worth it!”

Note to future patients: bring an electric heating pad with you. It helps ease the pain a little.