Sunday, 21st December

Day 20 - Stem Cell Transplant (going to stop counting from today and resume mid Jan when the next part of the transplant starts)

It's the countdown to Christmas and it's awesome.  There is a fabulous vibe in the house.  The kids all have friends over and there are six of them baking Christmas biscuits and icing them.  The smell wafting through the house is to die for and all this to the sound of Christmas carols.

The biscuit bakers

Our dear friends Matthew and Cameron are on holiday in Fish Hoek from Johannesburg and it has been lovely to see them again.  Ray and Bernadette are also in SA on holiday from the UK and it was wonderful having them and Melanie for a visit.  And then we were also treated to a visit from Tim, thanks so much Tim and come back soon.  We were sorry to miss out on a mini reunion at the Toad the other night.  It would have been nice for Jimmy to see some of his classmates and beautiful Kelly who is in SA on holiday but he was pretty exhausted after stem cell harvest on Friday.  The girls and I had a nice afternoon tea with Maureen, Kate and Sheila and our daughters as a very late celebration for Sheila's birthday at the end of November.  Lovely Champagne and too many sweet things to eat.....just perfect.

Jimmy has been feeling mostly fine.  I shaved his hair yesterday as it is now falling out in huge chunks.  On Friday he showered and scrubbed his head to try and get rid of some of the lose hair and ended up throwing away 2 handfuls of hair.  He is almost completely balled now.  He has been very tired and didn't sleep at all for 3 nights and couldn't sleep during the day so I think it got to the stage that he was overtired and then he would get into bed at night and it became a mental thing....the harder you try to fall asleep the further this possibility becomes reality.  And then his back started getting sore which I think was coming from the tossing and turning during the night.  Of course if Jimmy can't sleep then I don't get much shut eye either.   So last night I phoned Kate, our resident nurse, and went down to fetch some sleeping tablets from her and Jimmy slept like a baby last night.  He only woke up at 9am and already his back is feeling much better.

My almost bald hero

After thinking that we were going to have the worst Christmas ever with Jimmy in F4 Isolation we are now all eagerly awaiting Christmas Day and celebrating it together as a family.  There is only one person missing and that is Megan.  My brother Guy and his family are coming to visit on Christmas Eve afternoon.  We are going to have a family Christmas lunch at home and Jimmy's folks will join us.  And then we are hoping that Rohan and Patsy will visit in the afternoon as well as Matthew and Cameron.  My presents are all wrapped and the shopping is all done.

Megan on duty and in the Christmas spirit
on the Norwegian Cruise Liner - Jade

The children go to spend their second half of the holidays with their Mother and Father on Boxing Day so I am going to stock up the caravan and then on the 27th we are going to go up to Bredasdorp to spend 2 nights with my parents.  From there we'll go up to Graaff-Reinet and meet up with Stan and Michelle (watch this space for some hectic rainfall - they are cursed) at Camdeboo National Park and then we are going to play it by ear.  If Jimmy is up to spending some time with them and camping we'll go to Addo Elephant Park and then Natures Valley but the plan is if he wants to come home we'll just turn around and come back.

I'm not sure if I will blog again before Christmas so would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas.  Thanks for all your lovely emails and messages that we have received over the last few days.   It is truly is a blessing that stem cell harvest went so well.  A special thank you to Sakkie and Noeleen for the beautiful book you sent Jimmy, we received it on Saturday, thank you so much.

I am super excited - we are 6 page views away from 20 000!!

God Bless you all and please travel safe and take care.

Thursday, 18th December

Day 17 - Stem Cell Transplant

Since today is going to be a very long day I have decided to do updates throughout the day and then post them all this evening.

We set the alarm for 4am and I got up to give Jimmy his Neupogen injection.  He actually asked me if I could give it to him without waking him up.  I told him there was more chance of me giving him an injection without waking up.  One thing is for sure....he has never lost his sense of humour.

09h30
Jimmy has had his bloods taken and just as we were told, his white blood cell counts have more than doubled to over 20 since yesterday.  His vitals have all been taken, as well as weight and height.  An interesting side effect of Multiple Myeloma is loss of height and Jimmy has already reduced from 1.67m to 1.63m.

The harvest procedure today takes place in the Chemotherapy Clinic.  There are 2 beds behind a wall that doesn't go up to the ceiling with curtains, like in a normal ward.  Dr Fine has just finished inserting the PICC line in his groin under local anaesthetic so they should start the whole harvesting process soon.  I had a good laugh this morning when Patsy sent me a message saying she hopes those stem cells are all swimming around screaming pick me, pick me, pick me......so do I.

 

The Chemotherapy Clinic

The 2 procedure cubicles at the rear of the chemo clinic

Jimmy rearing to go

13h40
Gosh, this is a very slow process.  By the time they had Jimmy's PICC line in and he was hooked up to the aphaeresis machine it was 10h24.  So it has been just slightly over 3 hours.  I can see the stem cells in the bag but we have no idea how well or slow he is doing.  About 30 minutes ago Olivia came to get a syringe full of the stem cells to give to Dorothy who measures and works out how many are being collected and at what rate.  The rate of stem cells per ml of blood stays constant, although different for each person, so when we get these results we should be able to get an idea of how long this is going to take.  Jimmy has to lie completely flat on his back and can't move much before the aphaeresis machine and BP machine's alarms start going off.  The PICC line also has much thicker pipes going into his groin this time round so this is a little uncomfortable.  The one pipe is for out and the other for back in again.  It's amazing how this aphaeresis machine separates the stem cells and then everything else goes back into his body.

The aphaeresis machine

Jimmy's PICC line



The screen of the aphaeresis machine

Blood circulating through the aphaeresis machine

14h50
This is getting even more fascinating now.  Jimmy's body has approximately 4.5 litres of blood in it, which is quite average.  At 14h30 Olivia came to tell us that 10 litres of Jimmy's blood has circulated through the aphaeresis machine and Prof wants 14 litres.  We still don't know how many stem cells this produces but according to the nurses he is doing extremely well and we should be finished harvesting at about 16h30.

The stem cells

16h50
Dorothy has just come to tell us that Jimmy has been as absolute super star.  They are going to turn off the aphaeresis machine at 17h00 as they have managed to collect 15 million stem cells which is enough for 3 transplants.  Once the aphaeresis machine is turned off and all the pipes and tubes are removed, Jimmy has to lie still till 17h30 to give the main vein chance to clot nicely.  Olivia will then remove the PICC line and apply some pressure for a while.  We received his blood counts back from this morning and his white blood cell count was as high and 27.2.

17h45
Olivia has now removed the PICC line and Jimmy is still lying flat to make sure a nice blood clot forms.  I will have to wheel him out in a wheel chair and the only walking he is allowed to do is to the toilet until tomorrow.  They have also done another batch of blood tests and his white blood cell count has now gone up to just over 30 (normal is 4 to 11).  This will drop down again in the next few days to what is Jimmy's normal which will be around 2.5 to 3.  He doesn't have to have any more of the many pills he has been taking for the last 10 days in preparation for today nor any more injections and I have to admit I pretty relieved about this.  After something close to 30 or 40 injections it still doesn't come naturally to me.

What would normally happen now is Jimmy would have been admitted to F4 Isolation Ward in the next 3 or 4 days for another heavy dose of chemo to kill everything again prior to stem cell transplant.  The nice thing now is that Jimmy can actually relax till mid to end January when he will be admitted.  We are hoping that Prof will be able to confirm what date he is going in before they all close for 2 weeks because we think he only comes back on the 19th of January but he has assured us that Jimmy will be included in the 1st batch going in for transplant during January.

Homeward bound after 10 hours

Today was a big step and a whole leap closer to Jimmy's recovery and I am very happy that it went so well.  Much better than we had anticipated.  A special little thank you to Jane Pederson (who works at UCTPAH) for popping in to check up on Jimmy xx