so I woke up wanting to make things just so. I decided to shave off a week’s worth of scruff. I knew I was close to neutropenic so I kept the shaving to the top half of my face, and kept far away from any nicks. Regardless, it made the people around me pretty darn nervous, which, guilty, I found a little amusing.
The transplantation procedure was a full-on procedure in the room. Doctors, nurses, machines to monitor my vitals. It was all very intense. Lots of monitoring how I was feeling in the sensations in my body. The seriousness was broken up a bit when the actual procedure occurred using what looked like an industrial turkey baster filled with tomato paste. By hand, he injected it into my infusion port. I don’t know if it was too thick to do normally, or if they just didn’t want to let it take the time outside of my body to infuse normally.
During the procedure they told me I had to stay awake. Even my dad got into the antsy game and was verifying that the name on my stem cells was mine. But I came through with flying colors, no need for any of the aids. Like I said, during the procedure they said I had to stay awake. Afterwards I napped for about 3 hours. I had this overriding feeling like they had put an extra thick shake in me and I was just processing it.
The next day I was given a day off. My blood work was mostly stable so I wasn’t put in isolation right away.
that night was a ceremony and birthday party for me and four other people, who had each received their stem cells that day. I had had a day to process, so I was the most alert.
Like I have said, there’s plenty to look forward to, and I feel blessed every day. Thank you for all the well wishes, and love and positive energy coming from that end of the world. It’s appreciated far and above what any of you can imagine.