Day Zero Minus Three

Today was a sleepy day for Jeff.  He received his first chemo at 10 o’clock last night and woke up at 5 a.m. vomiting.  He was given Compazine to help the nausea and that is probably what caused his drowsiness.  He kept his breakfast down but not his lunch.  His nurse said Compazine works quickly on “active nausea” and, in fact, it did seem to work well.  Since he was nervous about eating dinner, he was given Ativan preemptively.  Ativan also puts him to sleep, too, so basically he slept all day.  I woke him up for meals and to say “hello” to his visitors.  He struggled to open both eyelids at once.  It was probably a blessing for him to sleep through this day.  I appreciated the visitors anyway.  It would have been a lonely day without them.

There were five IV pumps on his pole today.  In addition to the chemo drugs (one of which is Methotrexate which Mother takes for arthritis) and anti-nausea meds, he is getting antibiotics, anti-fungal and anti-viral meds, potassium, an anti-clotting drug, a drug to help prevent kidney damage and IV fluids.  He is also getting Tacrolimus, an auto-immune suppressant, which will continue orally at home for a few months after transplant to try to prevent Graft versus Host Disease (GVHD).  He is taking Vitamin E orally to help prevent problems with his gut and a tablet that dissolves in the mouth to try to prevent mouth sores.  I am quite sure I left something off of this incredible list.

Tomorrow is expected to be pretty rough because the effects of chemo continue for 24 hours after it is administered and he’ll get his first radiation treatment early in the morning which also causes all sorts of side effects, including nausea.  He will travel a couple of blocks from the Rhoads Building to the radiation oncology department in the Perlman Building in the morning and again in the afternoon.  The transport staff walks 10 miles a day!

His room will get allo-cleaned tomorrow so he will be moved to the family room and be given exclusive access to a staff bathroom for the duration.  It takes about three hours to clean the room and wipe down every surface in the room as well as every surface of the contents of the room.  Window and privacy curtains are removed and replaced with clean ones.  Isolation begins.  He probably will not be returned to the room until an hour or more after cleaning is completed.

The mystery woman remains unknown to us, of course, yet we have met many, many people on the transplant team and periphery staff who introduce themselves and tell us what part they play in the process.  The binder we were given during our patient care class has a business card page which is getting quite full. 

Thank God for good friends and a loving family.  Your well wishes are needed and appreciated.