What's goin on

What if that terse Facebook status update was all I wrote about beginning transplant?  Wouldn't you be pissed?  Don't worry, I've a couple of things to say about officially starting the process.
 
The first thing I want to say will only speak to Monty Python fans.  The rest of you can tune in later.  So you remember the scene in the Holy Grail where Lancelot and another guy are storming that castle with the wailing "Princess," and the 2 guards are watching?  And every time they flash between the guards and the knights, the guards are squinting off in the distance kind of confused, and the knights aren't getting any closer and are even getting maybe further until suddenly the knights are right on the guards fighting and the guards are just totally shocked even though its been going on for quite some time?  Well, that's kind of how this transplant has come up on me.  I've been watching it coming since, no joke, the day I was diagnosed (I was so angry at the doctor that suggested it I could barely be in the same room as her for 3 months or so.  I'm over it, by the way, and have made my peace with that doctor).  But now that I'm here in the hospital, it just feels surreal.  Like it is still way off in the distance from here.  So, guaranteed it will hit me like 2 medieval knights with axes, I guess.  Probably worse.

I checked into the hospital at UW yesterday.  My room is pretty basic and smallish but has a great view of Lake Washington and you can see Mt. Rainier when the clouds part.  The food is all room service style, which means I have a menu and I just call down what I want when I want it.  It's fantastic!  Tonight I had local salmon with cranberry vinagrette sauce.  Sorry UCDMC, but this beats the Turkey Chili Mac or chicken strips and fries.  I started the first chemo yesterday, which the doctor said should be "like water to someone who's had the chemo you've had."  I never was a big fan of drinking water, so sure.  It was certainly uneventful, but from the files of "Its always f-ing something" I pulled a delayed side effect from the intra-thecal chemotherapy I got a week ago to hit me today.  To prevent inflammation of spinal and brain tissue, you may remember I was on a short course of steroids to avoid headache and backache.  Well, that rx ran out on Sunday, so the aches chose my uneventful-like-water chemo day to flare up LIKE CRAZY.  I mean, I can hardly walk at times.  I had to resort to the dreaded oxycontin for painkillers as the only thing that works (I can't take steroids and potentially mess with the new immune system that's going to want to set up shop soon, I hope!).  I'm disappointed, as I hate being on continuous painkillers so early, but what are you going to do.  I still managed to do 30 minutes of walking laps on the the floor yesterday and today.  Luna came to visit and as always, lit up my day a little, and managed not to reprogram my I.V. pump.

However, today they started my second chemo which is probably one of the more gnarly ones I've had.  It's called Cytoxan.  They don't even try to hide the toxicity in a clever name.  "Let's call it Toxopoison!"  So right now, I'm feeling pretty nauseous, which is unusual for me.  Why, hello again, salmon with cranberry vinagrette.  On top of the aches (which my neuro-onc wrote to me, "will END, Jessica" when I emailed him in despair), and the 10 lbs of fluids they loaded me up with to flush this toxic sludge (which I do not disrespect, it is saving my life, as it were) I am winding down quickly tonight.  Tomorrow I have more of the same, then a day of rest, then we begin radiation.  We'll see how I'm able to report on all that.

Love and love to all, thinking about and missing everyone.
j