Day Zero Plus Five – Psychedelic Dreams and Green Food Tray Syndrome

Jeff had another good day.  He ate some, vomited only once, watched some TV, biked for 13 minutes and had a good nap in the afternoon.  We “read” the first page of a Look-Alike book that Tracy sent; it took us half an hour.  Danny, Jennifer and Sam visited in the evening and Jeff engaged in real conversation for an hour or more. 

This morning Jeff tried to describe the indescribable – a psychedelic dream.  He said he was looking at a rectangle.  There was a frame with blurred edges.  He lifted the frame and put dirt inside (he thought this was his disease).  He sorted the dirt into piles, one pile became two.  He said it was “heavy” but I think he meant to say it was “heavy, man.”  He spent the night trying to make sense of it, “an eight-hour dream.”  He related the same dream to our visitors and he used a completely different set of words: foam, stones, people… Stay tuned.  He thinks it was significant - a spiritual healing dream – which will give him a way to view his disease and recovery.  It may take several nights to figure that one out!

Jeff threw up only once today.  He made the mistake of lifting the lid on his lunch tray and immediately threw up.  The nurse says he has “Green Tray Syndrome.”  Really, truly!  Many patients suffer from this!  She suggested having his food wrapped and brought in without the tray.  At dinnertime I had the tray dropped off outside his room.  Then I put his mashed potatoes into a cup (this involved removing my gloves and gown, fixing the cup of potatoes, handing them to the nurse in the room, then washing and putting on new gloves and gown to go back in the room).  He ate it but was not particularly crazy about the taste.  We’ll also continue to offer food I bought – Pop Tarts, organic fruit bars and cakes from Whole Foods, etc.

Jeff has been asking for his nail clippers.  I reminded him that he was not allowed to have anything sharp and the nurses who allo-cleaned his personal belongings sent the clippers home with me.  If he were to cut himself when his platelets are so low, his blood wouldn’t clot well and he might get an infection.  The solution:  I snuck in a file.  And, no, I did not bake a cake.  He filed and filed and complained about how long it was taking.  I said, “So what else do you have to do?”  He is still asking for the clippers.  I won’t be taking that particular risk, at least not unless and until I am permitted to take the risk of kissing him.

Jeff wrote to his donor today:

Dear Donor,
I'm still waiting for your bone marrow to kick in which won't happen until about Day 18.  I am hopeful it will happen sooner.  My doctors are managing nausea and other side effects of my treatment and I am dealing with insomnia.  I hope you aren't nocturnal. :-)

I hope you have returned to your normal activities.  Memorial Day was a blur to me.  How about you?

Thinking of you and thanking you for your gift of life.

Your blood brother,
Patient #465821Q or whatever it is that they call me.