Blah, blah, blah

Happily receiving chemotherapy

Don't do drugs, kids.  Heidi has been on a particularly nasty IV brew the last 3 days and it's causing some issues.  Loss of appetite, loss of energy, and pretty soon, loss of hair.  I would recommend against ever doing IV poison. 

The good news is that she only has one more day of this noxious cocktail.  Wednesday morning is the last chemotherapy infusion, followed by a walk-through at the radiation facility. They should allow photos in a walk-through, right?  Stay tuned for an exposé in a future episode.

Tomorrow afternoon is nothin'.  Except maybe a trip to the Seattle Aquarium.  We're hoping to go on a free pass from SCCA.  Thursday is a day off.  And by "day off," they mean no poison or radiation.  What do you do on your days off?  Heidi recovers.  I supposed you could call your weekend a recovery too, but it's a different recovery. 


At Seattle Art Museum



Oh, and "day off" does not mean no trip to the clinic.  Heidi gets her first dose of Tacrolimus.  Some people call it FK506.  Whenever I hear someone say FK506 I always think of ED209 from Robocop.  Similar?

First dose of Tacrolimus Thursday morning at the clinic.  Thursday mid-day Lori McD visits.  Thursday eve we get to do our first at-home pump with the second bag of Tacrolimus.  DD will be here to photograph because I'll have my hands full maintaining sterile connections.  That's a day off.



Friday is not a day off and not a day of more poison, so it must be . . . Correct!  Radiation.  200 cGy of gamma rays.  That should be over around 1pm.  Then we wait for the bone marrow to arrive from the large pelvic bone donor.  That is expected in the evening, depending on how long it takes to ship.  The donor will be getting drilled Friday morning; it's packed and shipped and arrives the same day.  Heidi will check into the hospital and receive it that evening.

Saturday morning she gets her first dose of Methotrexate.  It's actually another chemo drug, but given in such a small dose it doesn't kill blood cells.  It only maims her immune system to reduce Graft versus Host reaction.  Everybody staying with me so far?  At that point Heidi might come back to the apartment, or might stay in the hospital, depending on how well she feels.

Enough of that clinical stuff.  I realized that nobody can read the blog comments except me.  There also is no way for me to reply to comments.  So they just sit there.  But I really appreciate them, so keep them coming.  I read them and react in subsequent posts.

Kris, who lives in Samammish with her husband and two lovely girls, sent me a surprising message.  She said the girls' basketball team voted to donate their end-of-season coach gift money and trophy money to Team Heidi Ho.  This is our team that is climbing 69 floors of the Columbia Center to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.  This kinda blows me away.  I coached our daughters for many years in T-ball, softball and soccer.   Such a heartwarming gesture.

When Team Heidi Ho is climbing on March 20, Heidi will be in Day 9 post-transplant.  She will very likely be incarcerated in the big house (UW Hospital) then.  The team page is at http://www.llswa.org/site/TR/Events/BigClimb?pg=team&fr_id=1160&team_id=36200

The Blackwell Bobcats