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| The Hickman catheter was inserted Friday June 13th 2003 |
| The exit site of Eric's catheter. The tube runs up inside his chest to the collar bone then enters the Superior vena cava (however you spell it!!) then runs through the vein down into the right atrium of the heart. |
| We had a major computer glitch so are starting over!! Tech support is not very helpful today, he's rather zoned, and falls asleep halfway through his instructions. |
| For a bone marrow tranplant they number the days prior to the transplant with negative numbers, then the day of the transplant becomes day zero, then we go into the positive numbers afterwards. |
| Day -8 We checked in at 1pm on Sunday. We are staying in the village at the City of Hope. It's like having a little studio apartment of your own. You provide and prepare your own food, wash your clothes, and take care of administering all the IV fluids, medications etc. You also need to keep track of everything and chart it all. Each day after the first radiation treatment you go for evaluation and they check to make you're doing everything right. |
| Day -7 The first radiation treatment was a breeze, and Eric had high hopes it would continue that way. Unfortunately by the end of the second treatment he had a terrible headache and the nausea hit really hard. We spent hours receiving treatment and help to be able to try to cope with it all. It has been a really hard day. |
| Day -6 Eric is really having a hard time. He has been so sick and doesn't feel like eating, on top of which he can't hold anything down. His mouth is very dry, no saliva at all, and his neck is swollen and very sore. |
| Day -5 The doc has ordered further changes in meds for Eric and the nurses have been wonderful at helping us adjust things. The happy thing is this morning the nurse who was drawing his blood and doing his vital signs is a CML survivor and went through what Eric is going through. She gave him great hope. She had her transplant 3 years ago and is doing great. He is very sick and very weak. It's been another tough day |
| Day -4 Thursday July 3rd. IT's been a great day!!!! Eric made it through his treatments without losing it. He is still weak and his blood counts are heading down, but NO nausea!!!!! He had a red blood cell exchange today. They did and transfusion and changed his blood from A+ to O+. He has now got the blood of several friends and family members!!! THANKS to EVERYONE who is donatng for him. |
| Day -3 Friday July 4th!!! We started our day very early. Eric was nervous and agitated so couldn't sleep. We gave up trying and just got ready to check out of the village and into the Bone marrow transplant center. We got over here early and got checked in. Chemo was supposed to start at 10 am and there were a lot of pre meds they had to get into him prior to starting. It was more like noon by the time it got started. Eric handled it really well to start with and we were getting excited thinking he might get through it better. He was very weakened, but not sick. He did well till about 11pm then had an awful night. It was so hard for him. He had terrible nausea and diarreha. |
| Day -2 Well, after a really hard night we had a great laugh today. Eric was VERY sick from the chemo through the night, and was more than miserable. All fluids going into and out of his body have to be inspected and measured. At about ten in the morning the nurse was measuring and emptying everything and flushed the toilet. Well, the toilet overflowed and she very calmly threw down some blankets to stop it coming our way, told us to stay right away from it and went for help. What happened next was like something out of a movie!! We had their entire HAZMAT team turn up, the hospital administrator, head Doc, security, maintenance, bio hazard inspector and housekeeping workers all decked out in goggles, masks, hats double gloved,shoe coverings, outfits over their clothes etc etc etc. Apparently Eric is now a biohazard! Everything used was placed in hazardous waste bags and the cleaners had to carefully place all they were wearing into the bags too. The whole operation being directed by the inspector who once he was outfitted came in to inspect. Unfortunately for the cleaners he wasn't happy and they had to re outfit and start again. We were interviewed to make sure that we weren't contaminated, and Eric wanted to know how he could be contaminated by his own waste!! He had me laughing so hard as he commented on the proceedings. I don't know if it was really as funny as it seemed, or if we were both so overtired we found everything funny! One comment he made came from an discussion we'd had with some visitors previously about the term BM (bowel movement) The kids decided BM stood for Bob Marley and as this was all happening Eric said to me, "man I have some narly Marley!!" I'm glad that inspite of his feeling so rough he has maintained his sense of humor! By the way this story has been related with his blessing! |
| Day -1 Eric had a really rough night. THe chemo is really acidic so burns every direction it comes out. The nausea is painful too because he can't eat so it is stomach acid on top of the chemo. He's very weak and hurting, but still has a beautiful smile! They started him on immune suppresant drugs to prepare him for the transplant It is scary to me that they are destroying his immune system. We all have to wear masks and scrub up around him now. His blood levels are getting VERY low. |
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