Day 2

Okay, so I'm only a few minutes into this day, but i can tell you know that its going to be even more of a snoozer than usual. Slept all day thanks to being knocked out from benadryl, so i'm going to do a little bit of walking to appease the nurses, then some farmtown (cracktown), count some cieling tiles. no crazy side effects thus far. main problem is this hospital bed mattress with an automated air bladder to prevent bed sores. feels like lying on a bubble. TdF coming up soon; something to look forward to. Take care.

Day 1

The quality of nurse sets the tone for the day. At 6am this morning i received a big helping of "i brought my homelife to work" from the new nurse. Loving that. I was in an out of sleep yesterdat afternoon, so i was up throughout that night and did most of my sleeping in the late a.m. today, and i'm still fighting off sleep from benadryl. fyi, they give me a lot of benadryl because i've been needing a lot of blood and platetelets right now and i tend to have some sort of reaction when this occurs. will try to get up and do som laps around the unit later since i've been in bed all day again. everything else is totally normal. haven't grown a tail or developed superhuman powers yet. all in good time. take care.

Day 0

Transplant day! I've heard a lot of people refer to this as their new birthday. These people need to get over their forced jargon-driven optimism. Don't get me wrong, I'm pumped, just a little deflated from yesterday. I've been on a particular drug for the last three days that is designed to kill off my T cells so that my body doesn't try and reject the new donor cells. The first night of this was a doozy. Lots of vomiting, lots of pain... the death rattle of my T cells. The next day was significantly better, since there was no one left to put up a fight. Just when i thought that was over, i had some delayed reactions yesterday. Namely, a head to toe rash. The good side was that it was mostly just itchy. The bad side was that it set the souls of my feet ablaze. So i spent the majority of my day laid up, covered in steroid creams, trying not to itch. 100 % better today, feet still a little tender. sneezed this morning and pulled something in my back, so i'm on the happy juice right now. fyi, the transplant involves no procedure or anything. its just like a blood transfusion. i have a port in my shoulder with three different lines in it and that's how they give me everything, so they will just inject the donor cells through it over a few hours. okay, will update when i know more.

Day Minus One

Sorry. Getting a late start on this so I'll just jump into it. I'm a husband and father of four from Central Arkansas. I was diagnosed with Leukemia (AML) in April of 2008, and after having undergone several chemotherapy treatments with successful yet shortlived success, am now in need of a stem-cell transplant in order have a chance at a little more of life. Fortunately, with the help of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX and the National Marrow Registry, I was able to find a closely matched unrelated donor. I'll get into stem cells and donors and transplant stuff later.

I've been in Houston for the last week preparing for my transplant, which will happen on July 1st. My doctors say that if all goes well, my stay in Houston will be somewhere around 100 days. They say the clock starts on the day of my transplant. I'll be on inpatient status for about 30 days, after which i will be discharged, but will have to come back to the hospital for daily labs and check-ups for about another 2 months.

So, here we are, me and my wife, Steph, temporary residents of Houston, TX. We moved here about two weeks ago to get settled in and hopefully Steph will be able to go home to see our kiddos. Luckily, we have family here watching out for us as well as family back home picking up the slack. There are several other people that have helped us through this so far that would like to be kept in the know as well, so i'm going to attempt to keep a daily update of what's going over here. I can honestly say that the week that i have spent in the hospital has certainly been a challenging experience already, so please excuse me if i come off as "me" at times.