Good news last night: Combination of dexamethasone, ondansetron, and aprepitant (had to look that last one up) worked perfectly to prevent any nausea at all.

Bad news: That was 12mg of dexamethasone, and even though it made me less jumpy than did my traditional doses I appreciated getting swacked by some lorazepam. The dex morning-after effect seems minimal.

So the worst parts were operating the flaky cable TV box and keeping my mouth full of crushed ice for a couple of hours during the melphalan infusion. The ice has actually been demonstrated to greatly reduce the later incidence of mouth ulcers, presumably by reducing mucosal delivery of the drug. I was a good boy and so got a little chilled. I’m assured the return on investment is huge.

My night nurse was a Xavier alumna only a few years ahead of Katrina. We got to talking about teachers and I inevitably brought up Mrs. Rickle and wound up showing her Merry’s YouTube of White Rabbit.

Again, they’re not going to wait for my blood counts to completely crash but will instead give me back stem cells tomorrow. Thus the nadir on the counts and the peak of misery, which should begin early next week, may only last a very few days if I get good engraftment. Today is likely to be very uneventful, and the rest of the week pretty much the same.