A Day Off

So today is the first day in a week where I haven't had to be up at the hospital for anything! It feels pretty nice! I get to just hang out at home and play!

I need to recount the last few days excitement for everyone now. Monday I had the harvesting of stem cells done, and as you can see by my dad's photos in the previous post, I pretty much slept through the whole thing! So really it was not a big deal. The great news is that they were able to get enough cells that I didn't need to go back! I guess that's pretty rare for anyone to be able to collect that much in just one session.

That night, I was feeling pretty good, nothing different than how I've felt. I went to take my temperature and it was 102! We called the clinic and they said to watch it for a few hours and if it didn't go down to go to the emergency room. I really didn't want to have to go just because it usually takes so long there and it turns out to be nothing serious. Plus it was snowing WAY hard and being late at night the roads were very nasty. My temperature didn't drop, so we ended up braving the storm and going to the emergency room. They were actually really quick once we arrived and they did some blood tests and a chest x-ray as well. Turns out I had the beginnings of a pneumonia! This could be really dangerous to me especially because my body is so susceptible to infections and disease. So they gave me some super heavy antibiotics by IV and then we left... at 3 AM.

By morning my high temperature was gone and I felt pretty good. I had to go have that same antibiotic by IV given again at the local hospital, and then we headed up to LDS hospital for some more testing. They want to be sure the pneumonia isn't a serious concern, so we'll be watching it the next few days. As everything stands now, as long as the pneumonia issue resolves quickly, I'll be admitted on Tuesday for THE treatment. The high dose chemo and then the transplant. This last week felt so long, with trips every day to the hospital and blood or platelet transfusions every day as well, not to mention shots every morning and night... I'm kinda glad it's over and we can get the real show on the road! I have a feeling though the next few weeks will be a little tougher and longer feeling than this last one was!