Day Zero Is Here

Although that still depends on how quickly they can harvest enough stem cells from the donor and the travel time to Houston. They transport the cells by medical courier from the donor's collection center to Houston. The courier literally gets on a plane with the cells in an Igloo cooler and brings them here. The cells probably won't be here until this evening.

Sometimes it takes two days to get enough stem cells, but with a healthy donor one try should be enough. Last time I received about 8 million stem cells, which is a good quantity, but it still just looks like a baggie full of blood.

The last two days have been heavy on the chemo. Day before yesterday kicked my tail a little. I had a case of the "shake and bake." That's where you get uncontrollable chills and shakes from the inside out followed by a high fever. Not fun. It took them a couple of hours and meds to get that under control. Yesterday was better, but a very full day still. Today there is no chemo, just a few laps around the floor and the stem cell infusion. I feel pretty good this morning, maybe just a little green around the gills.