Fortunately, it only lasted a day, and
what passes for normal around here these days quickly returned.
It pretty much began when we walked
into the home friends were letting us use during our time here. The
medicine that I had been taking to stimulate stem cell growth had
been causing horrific pain in my spine and ribs all day and there
was no real way to get any relief. It was... unpleasant.
So, we walked into this beautiful home
that had been so graciously loaned to us, took one look around at all
the lovely things that had made this a home, and... I promptly burst
into tears. Not little ones, either. We're talking sobs. I'm okay
with crying, but the feelings around it sucked.
And that was just the beginning. I
thought of our friends' kindness and the support we have received
from so many people- sobs. I thought of all that we had gone through
and how much more we still had to face- sobs. I thought about the
toll this was taking on my wife- sobs. There was a lot more sobbing,
but the one thing that came as a complete surprise was how much I
missed our home in China (Maine).
Since we left Scotland, it has been
hard for me to consider anyplace I lived as a home; not like most
people seem to, anyway. When we first came arrived in this country,
we lived in nine places in four years, and continued to move every
couple of years after that. It was so bad- and as God is my witness,
this is true- that during my freshman year in college, my parents
moved and didn't tell me! Seriously. I wouldn't kid about a thing
like that; well, I would, but I'm not.
I managed to get a ride with someone
who was headed that way, so I figured I would surprise my parents.
Surprise! I arrived at what I thought was home at 2 am and woke a
stranger who did eventually open the door. Surprise! He knew where
they had gone, and I quickly tracked them down. Seems they were going
to get around to telling me they'd moved. Sure.
With a history like that, then, it
truly shocked me to react as I did. We were cut off from our comfort,
our friends, from everything that had remained familiar to us in this
strange new place called called cancer patient. It probably wouldn't
have been so bad if we'd had any idea what we were about to face and
where we were about to face it. We knew I was having a Hickman line
put in and we were going to be harvesting sea monkeys, but what did
that actually entail? No idea.
Putting the Hickman line in involved a
surgical procedure to put, what feels to me, like a big, honking
thing with tubes coming out of it, into my chest to be used to insert
and extract fluids as necessary from my body for the foreseeable
future. Okay, next.
The procedure for harvesting stem cells
is actually called apheresis. I was hooked up to a pretty cool
looking machine and my blood was passed through it, stem cells
removed, and then my blood was put back. As we know, my medical
knowledge is pretty much limited to what I learned from Marcus Welby,
MD, back in the 70s. So once again, I figured I would feel the blood
leaving and returning. Pretty cool, right? Nah. I felt nothing. I
know, when's he going to learn, right?
Well, that's now quite right. I felt
incredibly bored. I had to stay attached to the machine for seven
hours. No walking around, no going to the bathroom. Nothing.
Fortunately, the person who was conducting the process was wonderful.
No surprise he was from Maine. He and Sheri really hit it off and it
was nice to see Sheri being able to be comforted. We have a great
picture of Sheri sleeping in a chair, covered with a blanket he had
gotten and put over her. I'll bet that isn't in the “procedure”
book, but it was an incredibly kind, thoughtful thing to do.
We were scheduled for up to four days
for harvesting, but were done in two. We needed eight million cells,
and ended up with 11.6 million by the end of the second day.
Everybody was happy! It gives us two days to actually take our first
deep breath in a long time. We have nothing to do and nowhere to be.
What???? I hope we remember how to do that.
Every single thing that has been done
to help fight my multiple myeloma and my chromosome deletion has
brought sparkling results. I'll say again: I have no doubt that your
prayers and best wishes have played a large part in those outcomes. I
hope to be in touch one more time before I go under the knife...Oh.
Wait a minute. There is no under the knife. My stem cells are
reintroduced through an IV, presumably using my honking, big chest
piece. Nevermind.
Thank You note: We wanted to thank all of you who have shared and/or donated to the Go Fund Me site our daughters, Alison, Jennifer and Kristie, have established. This week has also reminded Sheri and me how important your kind words, prayers and wishes have been . We couldn't have done this without you. If you would like to see photos of us and our family- and maybe even make a donation :)- visit www.gofundme.com, and enter my name or Finding the Pony in the search box.
There
are a variety of versions of the story that gives this blog its name.
The pony is the constant in all of them. A man is on his way to a
party when he comes across a young boy shoveling ass over tea kettle
at an enormous mountain of manure. The man asks the child if he
wouldn't rather go with him to the party than shovel all that poop.
The kid says, “No way man. With all that poop... there must be a
pony in there somewhere.”
No comments:
Post a Comment