We met with Dr. Kewalrumani, today (after a two hour wait!) and things are now finalized, with my entering Sloan Kettering on Monday, January ninth.
Six days of high dose chemotherapy, the return of my previously harvested stem cells on day eight, and then we wait for my white blood cells to build back up to normal levels. If all goes well, I should be out around January 30th (or maybe a couple of days earlier!).
Dr. K went back over things, and it certainly seems that the second week will be tough, what with infections, and other nasty things going on. Evidently most people are on a morphine drip at that point, which tells you something about the pain and discomfort level. But it is a finite period of time – only a few days.
After discharge, I will have to cut back on my activities for two months. No large crowds, restaurants, etc. I asked him about going to the gym and he said "no." I suggested I could go at low peak times when their weren’t too many people around, and he made the obvious point that people are using the machines, and dropping their germs off on them.
One of the main criteria for discharge is that your white blood cell levels be back to normal, but the WBC’s are not the whole immune system. Hence the need to avoid infection, if possible.
Of course when you have nine and twelve year old children – well you can’t avoid the possible infections they return home from school with, can you?
I feel pretty confident about the whole pending protocol. I keep reminding myself that the goal is to be symptom free from the lymphoma for five to ten years, the hospital stay is a finite time, and I have lots of people pulling for me and my family!
Pretty cool, really.
Leave a Reply