Labs all looked good

Went for weekly blood work yesterday and met with the doctor and all my labs looked fine. My electrolytes were all within the normal ranges, and my blood counts were good considering I was 17 days post transplant. I had been a little worried because I had another go around feeling like my heart was pounding Wednesday night. My pulse was only about 105 when I checked it, which is a little high, but it felt as if I had just been out for a run. Palpitations I suppose would be the proper term. It was odd because I had just woken up after having a really vivid intense and not entirely pleasant dream and felt like my heart was pounding. At first I thought it was just a physiological response to the anxiety from the dream, but I got up and took and Ativan and it didn't seem to help with the sensation even over an hour later when I was feeling pretty relaxed. I also find it a little odd that I've been having a lot of very vivid dreams lately, and quite a few bad dreams. A little digging on side effects of medications i'm on revealed nightmares are a side effect of the antibiotic, Levaquin. I had taken it that day only a few hours before bed. It will be interesting to see if the dreams stop since Wednesday was my last prescribed dose. That's all a little beside the point, the real news is the doctor didn't think the palpitations were too concerning. My blood pressure was a little low, but she was pleased that it came up once I drank a powerade. Her recommendation was mostly just to take it easy and do a better job staying hydrated.

I also got a Zometa I infusion and that was pretty uneventful, thankfully. Last time I got one I felt like I got hit by a train the next day. Zometa is essentially the same thing as Reclast, one of the drugs used to treat osteoporosis. It's just a different dose that is more favorable for treating bone damage from myeloma or bone metastases from other cancers.

I'm also trying to figure out how to arrange to send serum back to Arkansas for the biweekly tests they want done there. They gave me a mail-in lab order form and provided all the materials and instructions for me to ship it back, but the doc here said the lab at the cancer center is not set up to centrifuge the tubes as they requested (which I actually find a little hard to believe). My phone nurse told me to try Labcorp since they have worked with them in the past. I called the local Labcorp and told me they won't centrifuge the serum unless they are going to run the tests and that they don't ever release vials to the patient. So waiting to hear back what to do, but I'm definitely slightly annoying by the whole thing. Very frustrating.

In better news, I had the pleasure of enjoying "Muffins with Mom" to celebrate mother's day at the school yesterday morning. We also got their latest school pictures back yesterday. They turned out pretty well. This is twice they've had them done at this school and both times they have amazingly managed to get 3 or 4 really good pictures of the two of them together...I don't think I have EVER been able to even get 1! They also took pictures of Olivia in a cap an gown for graduation....so so cute! I'll post some once I get the cd back with the picture files.

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Great to be home!

Flew in Sunday and it feels so good to be home! The kids are excited to have me back. Olivia keeps telling me she loves me, and when we first came in the house Oden sat quietly on my lap for almost a half an hour...and he never sits still!

I'm feeling pretty good, but still get tired very easily. I do miss the security of having my vitals monitored and my labs drawn every day though. I think my electrolytes have been out of whack a little. Monday evening my heart was racing and I hardly slept at all that night. My leg muscles were aching a little too and that and the fast heart rate are both signs of low potassium. It's not too surprising since it had been low last week and I hadn't been so good about taking the supplements for a couple of days. So I restarted those and contacted my local doctor who suggested getting some Pedialyte and trying to up my fluid intake. I'm feeling much better today and tomorrow I go in for labs and to talk to the local doctor. My original Hopkins doctor is helping out with my local care. I wasn't sure if she would since I ditched her for Arkansas, but she agreed so it makes things a little easier...although it might be a little awkward! I really didn't want to have to search for a new doctor though so it's best.

I'm still trying to work out the schedule for the second transplant. I was hoping to go back the first week of June, but they are trying to tell me the 15th because of "the doctor's erratic schedule". We want to move forward as fast as possible since we still have to pay for the rental even when we aren't there. Also, after 90 days on disability my pay is reduced so it will be more of a hardship. Plus I want to be finished up with the intensive portion of treatment that requires me to be down there for weeks at a time before Olivia starts kindergarten in the end of August.

OMG, my baby is starting KINDERGARTEN! We had registration on Monday, so strange to walk into the elementary school! They told us they have 5 kindergarten classes this year. I hope at least a few of the kids she knows from her pre-K class end up in the same class.

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Looooong day, but I'm free to go!

Wow, what a long day. It started fabulously with a celebratory breakfast at a local restaurant called the Red Door...croissant French toast topped with caramelized bananas. YUM! My mom and I had seen this place featured on a local morning news show last time we were here, we were sitting in the clinic waiting room with our mouths watering watching them make this fabulous looking French toast on TV. Unfortunately it didn't work out for us to make there last time since they weren't open for breakfast on Saturday (they were doing a trial only on weekdays). So this time we made sure we could get there on a weekday. It was so worth it, even though it meant getting up pretty early.

Then we headed to the clinic for the labs and waited anxiously for the numbers that would determine my fate. The main thing was that I needed my white count to be 2.0 or higher, and I was 3.15! That and all my other numbers were good enough to qualify me for discharge. Woot! I just would need some platelets in order to get the central line removed. After this it was a lot of dashing around trying to coordinate fitting everything in by the end of the day. I met with Dr. B briefly and he suggested I should be a poster child for telling other patients that it's really not so bad! Ha! He was pleased with how fast I recovered and with minimal side effects. He also said that my light chain is now in the normal range which means ALL my myeloma markers are in normal ranges!! He stopped short of calling it a complete response (the myeloma version of remission), and I suspect this may be because he wants to see this maintained until my next re-staging. In the end I managed to get all my discharge instructions, get the platelet infusion, and have the line removed. Whew, hectic Friday for sure!

I met another young patient in the clinic who is from Manassas, VA and works in Maryland. He was also recently diagnosed and made his way to Arkanasas. I got called in to see the doctor right after we started chatting, but I gave him my card so hopefully he'll contact me. There really are people here from all over, just today we met Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, California, Virginia, and Germany.

So now I get to head home and I'm very excited! I'll get a longer break this time to allow full recovery before the second transplant. Despite the fact that I'm being discharged, my body still needs time to recover from the stress of being poisoned before I can safely be poisoned again. They want me back in 4 weeks for the second transplant.

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Wow, now I might actually get discharged TOMORROW!

My APN called and said she was able to get me a discharge appointment tomorrow, so if my numbers look good from my morning labs I'll get my line out and the clinic will officially discharge me! I wouldn't fly out for another couple of days anyway, but I'm wondering if this is some sort of record...discharge on transplant day 11!

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Transplant day 10...

White count up to 1.16! Almost there! Feeling better every day. I will probably be set to be discharged by Monday. I need to try to schedule that vertebroplasty too, then hopefully I can be home midweek next week.

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The blip was real, and today we had jump!

White cell count was 0.26 today, up from 0.08 yesterday! I still need to get up to 2.0 or higher, but now we are well on the way. At this rate I should be ready to be discharged early next week. I'll probably stick around a few extra days to get the vertebroplasty done so I cam breathe easier about my risk of a compression fracture once I'm with the kids.

Still on a mission not to get sick between now and getting up into the safe zone. Thankfully flu season is officially over here so they decided to pull everyone off Tamiflu. That's at least one less pill to take everyday, and $25 extra dollars in my pocket every 10 days.

Other than that just resting as much as much as possible. Although I have to say my mom is the one that is napping right now! It's hard work being a caretaker too, especially with added stress of all the tornado warnings over the past few days. Us northerners aren't used to those darn sirens! Luckily the sun actually came out for a little while today, we needed that after the span of gray stormy days.

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A little blip in the right direction!

My white count was up from 0.04 to 0.08 today. I little blip, but definitely in the right direction! I might need some whole blood tomorrow since my red cells were getting low today, but she said we would see how things look tomorrow. Feeling pretty good, but very tired today. Hopefully it's because my new bone marrow cells are hard at work growing and trying to make new cells. I even had to take two naps!

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