Day 30

This was another uneventful day. I'm on home health care now for four days a week including the weekends. That just means that they send me the medication and I hook up the infusion myself. I don't use an IV tree but a little pump that fits in a "fanny pack" style bag, so I'm mobile even though I'm hooked up. I'm just getting saline with magnesium in the IV, so it's no big deal. I've got a CVC (central veinous catheter) in my chest so I don't have to start an IV. Actually I've had the CVC in since the summer of 2006.

This will be a busy week since they will be restaging. Tomorrow starts with a bone marrow aspiration, BMA for short. That's essentially a long needle in the hip bone followed by a bone biopsy which is done with a hollow cork screw type instrument which they use to extract a bone sample. Fortunately, as gross as that sounds, it's done with a local anesthetic. Although it's sore for a few days it doesn't really hurt much. Getting a tooth filled is about the same.

Wednesday I get a PET scan and Thursday a CT scan. The PET scan consists of an injection of radioactive glucose followed by an MRI-like scan. Cancer cells absorb glucose faster than benign cells so the MRI picture shows up the parts that glow. If you "light up" the picture you have a lot of active cancer. Hopefully I won't light it up much. The CT scan just picks up masses and doesn't distinguish between cancer and benign cells. But it does give them size and location of masses.

Next week we'll have the results back and it will give us a good indication of how the transplant is progressing. They'll repeat the restaging at Day 60 and/or Day 90.

Thanks to everyone for the comments and the cards. This is a slow process and more than a little boring. So it's nice to hear from everyone.

How about Tech's new football coach? Looks like a good hire to me. Since Tenuta may not stay on as the defensive coordinator, the bowl game will be interesting with him coaching the team. Surely Paul Johnson will have some input, but who knows. Johnson will not coach Navy in their bowl game and has said that he wouldn't coach Tech in theirs. That might make for a few tense weeks around the athletic offices, unless Johnson makes a deal to keep Tenuta on board.