Happy Birthday to Me

Today I am 57 years old. There was a time when that number sounded old to me. I've come to realize you are as young as your mind feels not so much how your body looks. As I age I see myself getting more impatient but at least I realize this so there is room for improvement. Yesterday was a prime example of how impatient I can be. I think it was justified. We finally arrived to Jim's room on the transplant floor a little before 1 AM. It would be another hour before he could actually turn the lights off and try to sleep. I walked home to the apartment and collapsed into bed around 2:15.

By 7:30 this morning I was back in the room. I was not going to miss meeting the transplant team. I also wanted to make sure there was not a miscommunication in the medications given to Jim. In the past some of the medications he takes have been left off the chart or prescribed the wrong dose. Today the transplant team consisted of the main doctor, a fellow and the nurse practitioner. It is the weekend therefor it is a skeleton crew. The transplant doctors rotate every two weeks so we will have this one until Friday. He was not Dr. Sauter. Instead we saw Dr. Sergio Giralt. It so happens that Dr. Giralt is chief of the adult bone marrow transplantation service. He was Robin Roberts' doctor. He was personable and genuinely a nice man. We also met the nurse practitioner who will be following Jim's case.

The day went pretty smooth. The day nurse, Jody, from Brooklyn introduced us to Jim's new companion, a sturdy rolling IV pole with four pump machines attached. This will be Jim's sidekick for the entire time he is in the hospital. Even when he showers he has to be hooked up. The central line catheter has four lumens (Jim calls them his dreadlocks). All medications, supportive fluids, chemotherapy and blood draws will be taken from his central line.
Yea...no more blood sticks.

Today they started what is called conditioning. It basically is the chemotherapy and other drug regimen given before he actually receives his donor cells. They started out only giving him one chemotherapy drug. We were given a calendar of what he will be given each day. I will go into that in more detail in a future blog.

Around 1:00 we were both pretty tired and with Jim's encouragement I went back to the apartment for a couple of hours. It was raining and I didn't have my raincoat or umbrella. Luckily it is only a 5  minute walk. I actually splurged and laid down for about an hour. I am not a napper. It makes me grumpy but it was a luxury I gave into.

In the afternoon the infectious disease team visited and it looks like the infection under Jim's arm is finally beginning to heal. Hopefully we will not be seeing that team anymore.

So back to my birthday. The best present I received was Jim finally making it to transplant. We had a lot of bumps along the way but he persevered. I look at each day as another day in the healing process. We know he is in for a rough road and yes it has already taken longer than we had hoped but we have Sara and Richard's wedding to look forward to and that will be the biggest motivator in Jim's recovery. We are in good hands.