it’s been known for some time that a component of breastmilk, called human alpha-lactalbubin made lethal to tumor cells (HAMLET for short!) causes cancer cells to die.

you can read more of tanya’s post here and read what i did with my own breastmilk during my battle with cancer here.  tanya also ran a piece on my journey here.

november 15,  a sunday, i checked into casa doyle for some amazing fun, food and frivolity.  seriously, i could totally live there as the non-participating sister wife.  dude, everyone needs a housewife and my dearest of friends does not disappoint.  there was coffee ready every morning.  we cooked breakfast, went out to lunches, ordered in for fun and made some spectacular dinners.  mostly i just stood there when the spectacular dinners were emerging.  there were two mammas, two nurslings, and (eventually two) very happy daddies with ex-disney girls for wives. 

monday, november 16th through wednesday, november 18th my amazing friend drove me to the pathology lab that does stem cell harvesting.  thursday, november 19th i was admitted here to the bmt (bone marrow transplant) unit.  all bmt units are generally still referred to as such since autologous and donor stem cell transplants are relatively new.  well, new enough not rename the units yet.my havest days were uneventful.  so was my check-in day.then day -5 (11/20) i started high-dose ICE chemo.  that lasted through the weekend and finished up on the early pat of day-2 (11/24).  the days -2 and -1 were mostly fluids and resting, and let me tell you, plenty of barfing.  nasty!

i got my stem cells back on wednesday, november 25, day 0.

we’re at day +3, and it’s saturday, november 28th.  i spiked a high fever last night, as was expected at some point.  i got all of my lines, blood and urine cultures right away.  then i woke up after a few hours of iv antibiotics and needed some benadryl to combat the red man syndrome i was suffering.

so there it is, my life in a nutshell so far.  i’m sure i missed plenty and didn’t talk any about the hospital drama with nugget visiting, but they’ve already beaten me back to a half slumber with the benadryl and reconnected me while i typed.

more to come, i promise!

it’s hard to blog when i’m depressed.  you can gauge my state of mind for yourself just by the frequency of my posts.

monday, i go back to inova loudoun for the week for my last dose of eshap chemo before my transplant.  no, cancer doesn’t get labor day off.

thankfully, they lowered my bp with meds and gave me some dilauded for the pain. i’m doing much better today, but it was indeed quite a scare. i seriously though my brain might explode.

so, after nugget’s tantie left, her aunt katie and uncle “hibbip” (phillip) came for a visit. nuggetdaddy and i made it up for jenny’s show in alexandria. then my mom from florida came for her turn at casa de bits. nuggetdaddy and i both celebrated birthdays.

now, i’m back in the hospital enjoying a week of chemo, hopefully my last before my transplant. my pet scan was good. the report says “virtually no (cancer cell) activity,” that the site of involvement is “1/2 to 1/3 the size” from the previous scan and there is “comparably less (lymph) nodal involvement.”

i’ve just had 10mg of ambien, so i should be checking out soon. i’ll try to blog again in the morning. peace!

now i’m anxiously awaiting the arrival for my friend dr. t., who’s bringing me panera for lunch.

nuggetdaddy brought me z pizza yesterday and it was heavenly.  it was the first real food i’d eaten in days.

i’ve been getting visitors, but everyone seems to come at the same time, so i have lots of long drawn out periods of boredom. 

the steroid jitters are the worst of it this time, next being the nausea, but that’s fairly well controlled.  i might have to have a transfusion before i go home, whihc will likely be tomorrow, but today’s hemoglobin went up so maybe not!

nuggetdaddy is running all around the state of virginia today for work, so i will only get to see nugget once and not unitl this evening.  bummer.