Today's The Day

Day Zero that is. I get the stem cells tonight at 10:00 central time.

I'm not sure why the time will be so late. I got word yesterday about 2:00 pm that the cells were successfully harvested from the donor, so that leaves about 32 hours for transportation and processing. I think the donor may be overseas. I had to sign a consent last week acknowledging that the donor is overseas or has lived overseas, so that was a pretty strong hint. That coupled with the time lag makes me think it will be a long trip for the stem cells. But that just makes this whole process that much more amazing.

Yesterday was a little rough. It started with nausea in the morning followed by a big dose of benadryl which made me very loopy all morning long. I also had a 7 hour infusion of Rituxan. I wasn't back to almost normal until mid afternoon.

This morning has started off much better. Just a little nausea. Breakfast tasted particularly good. I have the day "off" until tonight.

The infusion of the stem cells should go by quickly. They will start with a small dose of a steroid for a pre-med and follow up with a small dose of benadryl. The stem cell infusion itself will only take about 30 minutes I understand. There will be a doctor, a nurse practitioner, and the floor nurse there to watch over the process.