Celebrating the Collection

Wednesday July 11-Friday July 13, 2012
Quail Run RV Resort Lot 15
Wesley Chapel, Florida

 

We decide he’ll go and I’ll stay.  I think he’s buttering me up for the days to come.

Wednesday is the big day where David spends the ENTIRE day-12 hours - in the hospital and most of it in a hospital bed hooked up to a machine which takes blood out through one of his central lines, separates the stem cells out and puts the blood back in through the other line.

We are up at 6:15.  David is getting ready to go to the hospital, getting food to take for the day.  I am going out running before the heat sets in.  We have decided that I won’t be any help in this collection process and it would be a very long day for me to just be sitting in a chair by his hospital bed while he is on the computer or napping.  He is still able to drive for a few more days, and I’ll be spending many days sitting by his hospital bed in the weeks to come.  I also am not sure how much I want to see lines of blood going in and out of his body.

 

It turns out to be a VERY long day.

He arrives at 8am, they check all his vital signs and take him to his bed where they draw 4 tubes of blood out of the catheter (yea no needles).  It takes nearly an hour to get him all hooked up to the aphaeresis machine.  The machine is adjusted for his height and weight. This is how they calculate his blood volume. That total volume of blood goes through the machine 6 times for filtering. That is considered one collection.

By 9:15 things are working.  It will be 6 hours before this one collection will be finished.  When collection is finished, the bag gets removed and is sent to a central laboratory for a count of stem cells collected.  This process takes two to three more hours in the lab.  Only then do you know how many cells were collected and whether you will have to come back for a 2nd or possibly a 3rd day of collection.

The pharmacist comes by toward the end of the collection to discuss all the drugs David will receive and the expected side effects and when they will occur with each and how long they will take to resolve and what other drugs they have if David can’t handle the side effects.  My eyes would be crossing at all of this information.  He then at least tries to answer all of David’s “what if” questions.

At this point it is now about 4:15, David decides to go out for a walk while he waits to find out if he needs to come back tomorrow for a second collection.  If he does, he will need an infusion of phosphorus and potassium for the second day’s collection.  This is a two hour infusion.  Since he has to wait around for the “verdict” anyway,  he decides to go ahead and get the infusion “just in case”.  He could have come home and they would call him with the results, but if he needed a second day he would have to come back for the infusion anyway.  So he stays.

  

EIGHT AND A HALF MILLION!!

At 8:15, more than 12 hours since he left home,  he finally calls with the news.   They have collected over 8.5 MILLION stem cells in one day.  They can do one transplant with a minimum of 2 million and had been hoping to collect 4 million.  So this is GREAT news.   They will store and freeze the extra stem cells so that he will not have to do collection again should he need a 2nd or possibly even a 3rd transplant down the road. 

He’s definitely a happy camper when he comes home Wednesday night!!

 

 

 

 

I wasn’t there to take pictures of him in his collection bed but here is one of him in the bed for the line insert.  For collection, no hat and no gown, just your regular clothing.

 

 

 

 

 

And now the binge begins!

Thursday he decides that his prize for such a feat as 8.5 million cells is going to be pizza for lunch.  So we do a little research and end up going to Pizza Mania for their specialty pizza of the same name.  Oh my…..extra cheese.

Since we are down near Brusters I want to check on Jamaica-me-crazy for dessert.  I ask the manager and he says nope but they will have it TOMORROW!   I decide pizza is enough for today if I can have my favorite flavor tomorrow.  I’m feeling pretty lucky that we stopped by to find this out since they do not seem to actually notify you when your favorite flavor is in stock even though you can sign up to be notified on their website and I did.

Being unused to such food over the past 6 months we feel pretty heavy and sleepy by the time we get home and have no real need for any dinner.

 

If you are losing your taste buds, what the heck.

On Friday, David decides that since they are going to BLAST him full of chemo drugs tomorrow and destroy everything, he might as well go out for a down home breakfast.   I go running, and when I am back and showered, we head out to First Watch.   The place is PACKED at 10:30 am on a Friday.  I think How do all these people do this?   Why aren’t they working?  I sure wish I’d known at their ages whatever it is that they know.

Here’s the patient with his breakfast of choice – eggs over easy, home fries, English muffin and BACON.

 

The breakfast place decision narrowed down to three spots and since on the way home we are driving right by one of those not chosen, Cafe Fresco and Bakery, we stop in to check it out.  Not nearly as busy but it is now later in the morning.  However the bakery case is showing signs of a sell out.

So for tomorrow, his last breakfast with these taste buds, we buy cheese danish.

 

What a GREAT idea!

Yes this IS certainly pigging out but that’s not even the end.  Remember yesterday and Brusters?  David says we’ll come back in the afternoon for ice cream but I’m not so sure and want to make certain I get that flavor while they have it.  So we head down there and are the first customers of the day. 

 

 

We actually have to tap on the window.  The manager opens the sliding window and says “Jamaica-me-crazy right?”.   I tell him we’ll have a cone now and then come back later and have another since we are on a pre stem cell transplant binge.  He suggests we just get a quart or a half gallon now.  What a great idea.  For the price of two waffle cones we can get a half gallon of our favorite flavor.  

 

 

 

 

So we DO!

 

 

We get home and have to have a taste of course.

OK now it’s time for some chores. 

I take my little red stroller down to the Laundromat to get all of David’s clothing washed for packing tonight to go to the hospital for admission tomorrow.

I get everything together – I think – and take my little red laundry stroller down the lane to the laundromat which is at the opposite end of the park from us.

 

The lane may be scenic but the laundromat not so much.

 

 

It is very nice inside with plenty of washers and dryers.  I’m the only one doing laundry today but when I get the clothing in the machine I realize I have left the quarters back at the coach.  L 

 

 

 

 

Another walk up and down the lane.

 

 

 

Ok so now get those clothes in there.

 

I take a chair and wait the 30 minutes for the wash to finish.  I put the clothing in the dryer and sit to wait the 45 minutes.   The washer has a timer on it so you can see how much time remains, the dryer does not.  After what seems like a LONG time, I open the dryer to find that my clothes are not in the one I put the money in.  They are in the one next door.  Even I’m laughing.  

I put the clothes in, got everything set, turned around to get the money, turned back to the wall of dryers and picked the wrong one.   Ok so I move the clothes to the now very hot dryer and put in another dollar.

But I’m not sitting here for another 45 minutes. 

 

Episode 3 of the laptop saga is in full swing back at the coach.

I go back to the coach and David is working on his laptop again.  This time he’s got the entire thing apart and has found some serious dirt on the “radiator” for cooling the processor heat sink.  YUCK!  Look at that dirt.  Really clogged up.  (notice this man is STILL smiling)

We have leftover pizza for lunch, only one piece each this time.  I go back and get the laundry and as I come up to the coach up drive Karen and Al.  They come bearing gifts.
I recognize that bag.  OH BOY!!   This IS my LUCKY day!!

 

Eat your Heart Out Bill Mills.

I find out the reason that Brusters has Jamaica-me-crazy is that Karen called yesterday and asked them to make it.  Why didn’t I think of that?   These are THE most thoughtful people.  What a great surprise.  What great friends!  I am awash in J-M-C and couldn’t be happier. Thanks you two.  Glad you got some for yourselves too.  Hope you like coconut.  

 

David is still working on the laptop when they leave.  He works through another big thunderstorm muttering “the trouble I won’t go through to save a few bucks.”  Me thinks it would be more than a FEW bucks to get someone to diagnose and fix this problem.

But he doesn’t look like he’s minding it much does he?

Finally he gets everything cleaned up, checked out and back together.  Turns it on and………OH DEAR those same lights and a black screen.
Do you think it was the beer?   LOL – no but it will have to be partly taken back apart to redo a step or two.

Can you see the little green lights?? 

At the time of the posting of this blog it appears that everything is working well on the laptop with only a 5 hour investment of what David calls “cheap labor”.  It is connected to the internet and has downloaded his email.  What more can a guy want??   He’s still marveling at the amount of crud in the cooling system after only a year since he’d cleaned it previously.

Wish we’d been so lucky with the toilet problem.  Anyone know why the toilet won’t hold water?  We’ve replaced both the ball seal and the main seal, the vacuum breaker valve, the ball return spring cartridge.  We’ve cleaned the seals and the ball and retensioned the band clamp all several times.  We’ve talked to the company who claims the toilet should last indefinitely.   So now what?    PLEASE share your toilet wisdom. 

We’re batting pretty well here with our food binge, an ice cream windfall and the laptop fix.  Now if we could just get the water to stay in that bowl…..

Ice cream can make you happy about almost anything!