Despite all the wonderful things I could say about the Mayo people there is no question that home is a better place to be. I’m drinking, eating and sleeping better right from the start and we haven’t even developed good routines yet.

As I work my way through the impressive piles of paper and eMail scut please do not feel slighted by my neglect of your many warm messages. My energy for any of the stuff lasts only minutes at a time.

Love,
Tim

I’m not out the door yet but we’re getting all the gates lined up for it to be a fairly simple push this afternoon. Life will be easier when I can make a formed stool in the next few weeks but staying hydrated and cleanly looks to be at least as easy at home. Anybody want further details?

Oh, and I now have about the same immune system as a 2-week infant, maybe slightly more competent but not much. My emotional development is considerably advanced from that but speculations on degree are not welcome.

The hospital and I have very different definitions of a chocolate milkshake. Their concept is to take a small quantity of chocolate milk and then add all sorts of wonderfully nutritious supplements to the point that the tiny carton fizzes and throbs as it’s opened. The result is a product that makes me imagine hundreds of retired NASA nutritionists in a factory dedicated to help Carmello Anthony reach .03″ farther as he inadvertently removes some piece of an opponents’ anatomy on his way to the hoop.. Tastes like a product. Professionalism dictates performance trumps flavor.

I was thinking DQ. Milk. Chocolate syrup. Ice cream. Mix thoroughly.. You can get the same basic thing in thousands of Warren Buffett franchises across the world and each of us has one or two tweaks that we’re sure makes the best milkshake EVER (well, except for that time we overshot with the garlic escargots at my brother’s Christmas party, but you get the IDEA).

Anyway we finally got all Mayo Departments involved to agree that a
generic DQ chocolate shake with nothing fancy (OOOPS, ignore that
marachino cherry, it has already learned to chant “I am not a food; I am a DRUG!” before consumption) is an allowable dietary component and
even for a short time a sufficient one.

If the agreement works, I go home tomorrow. Only a little healthier,
so far. But a lot happier

Love to you all,
Tim

I’m going to try some macaroni and cheese for dinner tonight. If I can manage even a few bites it will qualify as a victory every bit as major as the afternoon Nancy and I were able to relax over “Money Ball” together. Serious bonding time.

Definite scary sights of the event horizon but so far trajectory and momentum seem adequate to escape on schedule in 4-6 days. Prayers appreciated even more than before. Love to all.

Well, the counts dropped again so I’m getting platelets and RBCs today. That’s happening pretty much on the originally planned schedule so I’m not going to take it as bad news.

Pears for breakfast, going to try a milkshake for lunch. This could be very big deal.

Well I shouldn’t have said there was NO medical news today. Platelet counts bottomed yesterday and are already back over 60,000 which we take as evidence that engraftment has successfully begun. White counts have perhaps leveled at negligible so we’re back on Neupogen to bring them back. Anemia tolerable. This may be a no-transfusion case.

Of course the bowel will recover at whatever rate it chooses so I’m not in full celebratory mode. However, as with everything else so far I seem to be on a relatively short path to recovery.

Status quo on the persistent nausea and malaise – just can’t summon interest in swallowing anything much for fear it will reappear. Counts approaching nadir so platelet/RBC transfusion a daily discussion so far without need to squeeze the trigger. Did my laps around the unit today, wearing Huggies under regular pants.

However, out in the real world Nancy managed to snag passes to all three of the Red Rocks shows, the Deer Valley Show, and the Flagstaff Amphitheater show put on by the String Cheese Incident in July. Tickets are probably still available, but I’ll bet not for long. We won’t follow the tour into California and Oregon.

I’d never considered lorazepam an antiemetic drug but it did help pass several not-so-pleasant days. No emesis, a little retching, but a constant, constant nausea first from the melphalan and later from the DMSO in which the stem cells had been preserved. I managed sips of Garotade and an occasional Italian ice. Hoping to move up to something with more nutritional content today especially since the lower bowel sluough appears to have begun. We now enter what is forecast as the worst of the ordeal, so don’t expect many chipper reports.

No big deal. More steroid in premed not very welcome but lorazepam helped. IV furosemide provided main daily activity.

So now we wait. The old cells are dying and I’ll get sicker as they go but the new ones are in to grow and eventually take over. Wait. Wait.