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.

Sunday, 1st February

Day 32 & 33 = Stem Cell Transplant

It's the first time in a long time that a weekend has felt like a weekend.  I had a hair appointment on Saturday morning, which always makes a girl feel like a million dollars, and then I had an early lunch with Patsy at Mug 'n Bean before I went through to the hospital.

After having a 'not so 100% normal day' on Friday, Jimmy was back to his normal self.  Prof had been to see him in the morning and told him he was very impressed that Jimmy was doing so well.  When I got there he was sitting in his lazy boy and reading.  Both the sister on day shift and the one on night shift told me they can't believe how well Jimmy is doing.  F4 Isolation is full to capacity with 12 patients at the moment and they are all very sick with high temperatures, not eating and in nappies because of hectic diarrhoea and vomiting too, etc.  And here is Jimmy, always smiling and the only complaint he has is that they can't get his nausea under control.

On the way home my brain went into over analysis - I am very good at this.  I started thinking that maybe the fact that Jimmy is so well is not such a good thing.  We had been warned how bad it was going to be.  I was even told that Jimmy would actually feel like he is going to die, but the clinic staff all said we had to be strong and always remember that this is a sign that the chemo is doing it's job.  Of course I have explained before that the one downside of having a stem cell transplant where you use donor cells is that there is a chance that your body can reject them.  The upside of using your own stem cells is that your body cannot reject them but the downside is that there is a chance the stem cell transplant will not be successful if your body does not react positively to the chemo they use before the stem cell transplant.  Basically Jimmy's did not reach the full potential of all the chemo that he has had since April and now I was thinking that maybe he is doing so well because his body hasn't reacted well enough to this chemo.  It's no wonder I don't fall asleep till 2am!!

Maureen and I went to a closing down sale of a B&B first thing this morning and then I had breakfast at her house.  I popped on to Blue Route Mall on my way through to the hospital to go and pick up our pills for the month, when you haven't shopped for a while, even this feels like retail therapy.

When I got to the hospital Jimmy was sleeping, it's the first time that he has been in bed when I have arrived.  He had actually sent me a message earlier to say that he had been very lazy and only got up at 11:00.  He said that he was feeling even more nauseous than normal and hadn't eaten his lunch. All he wanted to do was sleep.  The sister came in at about 2pm to do all his checks, they even check his sugar twice a day, and when she took his temperature it was 37 degrees.  He slept the whole time I was there and when he stirred at about 4:30 I told him that I was going to go home and have an early night and I would be back first thing tomorrow morning.  He apologised for sleeping so much and asked me if I wouldn't please take his temperature before I leave, which I did.

It was 38.2.  It felt like everything it time froze.  The dreaded temperature spike!!  I went to call the sister immediately and she came and doubled checked it.  Within 5 minutes there were 3 sisters buzzing around him all gloved and masked up.  One was on the phone to Prof, the other was putting up a bag of antibiotics and the 3rd was taking 3 lots of bloods, one from each pipe coming out the Hickman and one from his arm.  They then phoned through to xrays to arrange that xrays be done of Jimmy's chest.  The staff are absolutely unbelievable.  Sister Kurt came in and he explained that this meant that Jimmy had an infection and that we mustn't panic because this is something that we were not expecting but they always do.  He said that they had all been talking that morning and said that they were holding thumbs for Jimmy and went on the explain that if your temperature does not spike by day 10 (since stem cell transplant) then you are over the worst and it will probably take two weeks for your blood counts to come up to an acceptable level and then you get discharged. He said he was disappointed for Jimmy now as day 10 would have been tomorrow.

I have been dreading the day that I had to sit here and tell you all that he has an infection.  You can probably tell by all my babbling in this blog.  I decided to rather come home and get some sleep as I think tomorrow is going to be a long day at the hospital. I told the sister to please phone me any time of the night if Jimmy wants me to come through and she said that she would.  I phoned through to F4 at about 7:30pm and the sister on duty said that he has had his xrays and they have sent the bloods down, I think they grow a culture, but I am not too sure about this.  She said that I mustn't worry, that he is in the best place he can be and that I should get a good nights sleep and be there bright and early tomorrow.

Tomorrow we will get the blood results back and hopefully his temperature will have dropped by tomorrow morning.  It is going to take him about a week and a half to 2 weeks to get over this infection and in this time we have to hope that he can face his food and not lose too much weight.

Just before I left I asked him if he wanted some of his supper or at least one of the shakes and he said no.  I told him that he had made me promise that I would remind him that he has to eat and all he said was "I think I lied"......