'Day 1' arriving early and with our first snow of the season much to Faye's delight. She actually got out of bed and came to the window to see the dusting of white on good 'ole Colfax Avenue. Unfortunately 'Day 0', transplant day, was not without drama but it all turned out fine... In the wee hours of the morning yesterday as I lay awake reading about the origin of the word 'crap' on my phone, Faye woke up to go to the bathroom.  We resumed our familiar positions:  Faye sitting on the potty with her head over the bucket, me standing, holding her and rubbing her back.  As I was trying to convince Faye to try to get back into bed I noticed she was very hot then just as suddenly she passed out in a cold, pale sweat and started to tremor.  Fortunately I held my own crap together, hung on to Faye and yanked the call button.  Within seconds the room was filled with medical staff.  They acted very quickly easing Faye onto some blankets on the bathroom floor but not before one of them accidentally yanked the line out of her Broviac port.  With blood and fluid everywhere and both rooms literally filling with people (I'm not kidding, at one point I counted at least 23 and more in the hall...), lights on, alarms going off, it was quite chaotic.  One of the Doctors shouted 'If you're not directly involved in patient care leave the room NOW!'.  No one left.  I scooted out of the way cowering in my corner with tears streaming down my face and the word 'crap' echoing in my head, more scared than I can ever remember.  They got Faye on the bed in record time hooked up to a crash cart and mobile ICU and she became responsive within a few eternally long minutes.  It all turned out fine - it was a 'vasovago episode' which they very patiently explained to me in my stunned stupor is not surprising given the extremely high doses of chemo (which I tend to forget really is poison) and numerous medications combined with lack of sleep, inadequate nutrition, etc...  I was only reassured however after Faye turned her head and rolled her eyes at me (no doubt embarrassed at the amount of fuss and attention she was getting and not at all out of embarrassment over her wreck of a mother).

The whole 'episode' only set us back a bit on our actual transplant schedule (I suspect that once the process is in motion and cells are removed from their deep freeze there's not much that will stop that whole train ride).  So as previously promised the stem cells arrived with a small amount of pomp and circumstance - heavily escorted on a rolling cart in a heated chemical bath.  Two small pouches of life elixer.  I was very teary eyed (yes again, but at this point I was more than a little vulnerable emotionally) as the momentousness of the occasion sunk in - along with the chemical fumes they also warned us about.  Speaking of which, the smell actually seems to be the thing the staff talks about the most.  To prepare they put cotton balls soaked in menthol all about the room and recommended we both suck on strong, hard candy to help counteract the noxious and reportedly nauseating smell.  Everyone seems to have differing opinions on what it smells like but to me it was a strange sweet smell like rotten, almost fermented apples.

Not only were those pouches escorted as if they were national security secrets, the Doctors and nurses proceeded to go through a series of confirmations vaguely similar to a cheesy Hollywood spy film.  They had Faye's photo, stats and medical history pulled up on the computer monitor, then with four witnesses and an electronic scanner they scanned both her wrist band, my wrist band and the pouch of stem cells, then they verbally confirmed with each other, then looking Faye then me directly in the eye, a series of stats/data such as Faye's patient number, birthdate, diagnosis, parent's names, etc... The nurses then went through another series of complicated steps to hand infuse the cells.  There was a special vacumn apparatus that helped pull and push every last cell from the pouch and into Faye's port.  When the infusion was complete they went through the entire process all over again with the second pouch.  Done deal.  Whew.

Now we wait for the chemo to hit and hit hard.  Over the next several days Faye's counts will go down to effectively zero while the stem cells find their way into the bones and figure out how to start making new cells.  In the meantime Faye continues a series of daily personal care routines.  Just as an example the mouth care alone involves four medications, takes 50 minutes and 'must be' executed three times daily.

So it is and here we are seemingly deep in the trenches, bracing for whatever battles may come (forgive my dramatic, pedantic ramblings but wow this is a journey for the books).
~L