Day -7 / Chemo 1 of 5 (3/7/11)

Good morning, friends.

In the last few weeks, things have proceeded beautifully for the most part. Hurdles have been jumped. Maybe not with ease, and not without fear, but thanks to the support of the wonderful people in my life and the faith they've given me in myself, there has been nothing so far that I can't conquer.

The first hurdle of the transplant process was the Neupogen shots. For those of you that have been following along, you know that I was a bit apprehensive because of a past experience involving excruciating pain with this particular medicine. For four days straight, I received double doses in the form of injections into my belly. I didn't have any pain that some Tylenol couldn't dull. Hurdle jumped. Bring on the next.

The second big event was the placement of my Trifusion catheter. Surgery while awake and drugged, tubes hanging out of my chest until April. Entered surgery calm, woke calm. I was shoving dumplings down my throat by evening. Hurdle jumped. Give me another.

The third and biggest event, until today, was The Harvest. In the apheresis unit in KU Med, I was set up in a recliner and tubes were hooked up to my catheter. (There are three tubes that come off my catheter called lumens. Learning is fun!) One tube (attached to the left-most lumen that I named "Newman") drew blood out into the apheresis machine, where it centrifuged it and sucked the stem cells out and into a bag above. Another tube (attached to the middle lumen I dubbed "Jake") ran the rest of my blood (plateletes, red blood cells) back into my body. The third tube ("Truman" the lumen) was attached to bags of calcium, which were pumped into me to ease the tingly sensation the process causes when it leeches your calcium out with the stem cells. I sat for 5 or 6 hours. I peed in a cute little hidden toilet under the sink. (Due to the whole "being attached to a huge machine" thing, I couldn't leave the room.) And by the end of the day, we had not only collected enough stem cells that I didn't have to come back and do anymore harvesting, but we actually got more than we needed! All in one sitting. Told you I was a champ!

Today is the beginning of the biggest hurdle yet. The first day of chemo. In transplant-speak, this is day -7. After today's 10 hour day at the clinic, I will come here twice a day everyday this week and receive chemo. (days "-6" through "-3", I believe.) This is the most brutal chemo I will have ever had. It will destroy me. (That's the point, after all.)

Day "0", Monday, March 14th, is my re-birthday. The day of my transplant, when my stem cells are pushed back into me. I will continue to take handfuls of pills and have bags attached to me for fluids and anti-nausea meds around the clock. We will wait for the cells to take effect. And when that happens, I will rise from the ashes, reborn, cancer-free. It will be a long recovery, but eventually, I will get less sick every day, stronger each week. I will come back from this stronger and wiser than before. It just might take a while. Note to future Sara: Be patient with yourself. You're a newborn, after all.


Well, here goes. I will update as frequently as possible, promise. I'm looking at a month of recovery in Kansas City. It's not so much a question of having the time to write, It's more about finding my mind.


Day 1 of the last chemo of my life. Let's do this.