First Week+ in Atlanta in review:

Karin’s folks are 22 miles from the hospital, so 30 minutes is minimum travel time with no traffic. Depending on apt times we have to leave an extra hour early.

Tuesday 9/12/06
No food or drink after midnight (makes for a cranky Mark contemplating missing 2 meals). 9 am apt at Blood & Marrow Transplant Group (BMTG) for bloodwork. 9am is a bad start time for traffic, we leave at 7:30 am. BMTG is in a medical tower connected to Northside Hospital. Check in at N/S at 10:00 am for noon catheter inplant. This is done by a team of interventional radiologists under a fluoroscope. I’m slightly sedated, but fully aware. They numb my chest locally. This thing is inserted in my right chest tunneled under the skin over my collar bone, inserted into my jugular and travels towards my heart. It hangs from my chest ~8” and has 3 separate catheters for adding and taking blood, meds, etc. as they need to. The insertion is covered with a large bandage that is stuck to my neck & chest and makes it hard to move my neck normally. Got to eat lunch at Chick-fil-A about 2 pm.

Wednesday 9/13/06
Early day. Take anti-nausea EMEND at 6:00 am. Apt at 7:30 am BMTG. They change the dressing on my catheter, now covered in a clear 4X5” bandage. Mobilization chemotherapy, 8000 mg of Cytoxin compared to the 750 mg that I had in each of the 6 rounds of R-CHOP in Savannah. This runs till ~3:00 pm. They weigh you throughout the day as they don’t wont you retaining too much fluid. I’m pretty washed after this long day. The chemo chairs all face outside windows so you can see the weather and activity around the hospital and highways. They have TV’s for each chair. They don’t have chairs for caregivers, so Karin brings one and leaves it at the clinic so she’ll have one. The chemo is so bad for my bladder that they hook me to a pump to wear home for 24 hours to deliver MESNA. Take alternating anti-nausea meds for the next few days. I got sick once briefly. Pepcid twice a day from here on to prevent hearburn. Steroids twice a day for 3 days.

Thursday 9/14/06
EMEND. Apt at BMTG for labs and fluids. I gained 4 lbs so on top of the fluids they give me lacix (sp) a diuretic so a half dozen trips to the latrine during the visit.

Friday 9/15/06
EMEND. No apt today

Saturday 9/16/06
In the am Karin flushed my ports with saline. She helps me tape my chest up with a plasic bag so that I can wash my hair.

I have had the hiccups for 4 days since the chemo, from the chemo or the anti-nausea meds. Breathing exercises don’t work. Can’t drink water upside down due to the nausea, etc. I call BMTG requesting some relief. They quickly call in a script to the CVS up the street. Of course when I arrive, they don’t have any of the meds there and have to send me to another CVS. What they prescribed was is thorazine, primarily used for schyzophrenics (sp), hiccups is about reason #7 on the list of uses. It has a warning list about a page long that will blow your mind with the possible side effects. I get home and take one.

Then I travel with Karin to Mercer University. Karin is playing soccer with my cousin Paula’s design firm co-ed office team. I start to feel a little loopy at the match, but still hiccupping. Karin breaks a pinky finger getting blasted with a hard kicked ball, but she protects the face.

Karin’s folks have 2 new PC’s. A family friend Wesley comes by to network them. Wired & wireless for my work PC and wireless for my personal PC.

I take another pill after dinner. The thorazine eventually works. No more hiccups. I have psychotic dreams most of the night, but sleep hard. Thankfully I haven’t had to take anymore.

Sunday 9/17/06
We run a few errands. Karin washes the dogs. I watch Bennett in the yard. He is standing regularly and will be walking soon. I’ve enjoyed the additional time with Bennett. I will have to be much less hands on soon when my white blood count drops.


Week looking ahead:

Monday 9/18/06 - Flush ports at home, no apt today.

Tuesday 9/19/06 - Start the Neupogen injections daily 6am/6pm done at home to cause my marrow to produce additional stem cells. Have to warm it 30 minutes ahead, means starting at 5:30 am. Hopefully we can get that shifted to later. 7 am apt at BMTG for blood work today and Friday. Antibiotics each day. This will repeat for 7-10 days until they harvest the stem cells.

Northside hospital is wireless enabled, so Karin can take the laptop and check/send e-mails during my visits. BMTG is not wireless enabled yet. I use the laptop to input all of my labs so the Engineer in me can chart and graph them as we go along. It will play DVD’s without booting the PC. I’ll probably join Netflix soon.

My mom and dad visited Tues-Fri and stayed with my cousin Paula. I’m trying to walk 30 minutes each day as long as they will let me.

I miss everyone. I hope to have a webpage and or blog started in the next day, so that I can add to this as I go along, but not feel obligated to e-mail 1000 folks and not forget anyone.

My cell phone died, but they are mailing a new one, should have it in a few days (THE REPLACEMENT PHONE IS HERE NOW)