Monday, 2nd February

Day 34 - Stem Cell Transplant

Africa is not for sissies but let me tell you, neither is a stem cell transplant.

My Mom phoned me this morning before I left to find out how Jimmy is this morning.  I told her that I hadn't phoned him or the sister yet and as I was telling her I felt so guilty.  I woke up this morning with a nervous, shaky feeling and I didn't want to phone through and be told any bad news.  There is nothing I can do until I get to the hospital and it would've just made my drive through even more anxious, willing the bumper to bumper traffic to move faster.

I had that feeling in my stomach like when you are expecting something to happen.  I got a huge fright when I walked into Jimmy's ward.  He was in bed and shaking terribly and he looked so small and so sick.  His temperature spiked all night and he also has diarrhoea and still feeling very nauseous.  I sat down and it all hit me.  We had both been prepped for this but it still hits you hard.  It is terrible to see the person you love suffering so much and there is nothing you can do.  He was fading in and out of sleep and I just sat there with tears rolling down my cheeks.  I had to control myself so as not have a good blub as I didn't want him to see otherwise he feels bad on top of everything.  He did notice that I was upset and asked me if everything was okay and I said everything is fine.  Dr Fine came in to see him and changed some of his meds.  He is on antibiotics but she said as soon as they get the blood cultures back (tomorrow morning) they will know what infection it is and be able to change the antibiotics as some work better for some infections than others.  She made sure he wasn't in any pain, which he isn't.  She told him that he will be having daily platelet and blood transfusions for a couple of days now and she also told us the good news that his white blood cell count has come up from 0 to 0.3 which means that his stem cells are grafting.

Jimmy has uncontrollable diarrhoea and this is very humiliating for him.  He managed once to get up to go to the loo but didn't make it.  His blood pressure is very low so they have him on fluids all the time and his temperature spiked throughout the day and each time with this terrible shaking.  He didn't eat any of his meals today and only had 1 shake but he did have apple juice.

I asked Dr Fine when they would be doing some more Myeloma bloods to see what his cancer count is and she said they won't be doing any now.  At the end of May he needs to have another bone marrow biopsy and they will use these results to see where he is at and take it from there.  This is a long time to wait....you would think we were used to this by now.

So all in all not a very good day for Jimmy.  I found it very exhausting and emotional but I know he is in the best place and being taken good care of.

I hope he has a better night's sleep tonight and his temperature breaks so that he can start getting better soon soon.

This is what a bag of platelets looks like

And this is a beautiful photo they have on one of the walls in the hospital of a wild flower scene.  I took this a while ago but keep forgetting to upload it.

Today when I walked past this wall I did wish that I could step into the picture and disappear for a few hours.