The phone rang early on Tuesday morning around 8:00 a.m. and Baylor Hospital was calling my cell phone to tell us that Phil had once again leaped far beyond the attempted harvest of four to five million stem cells and came steaming across the finish line with eight million collected in his efforts with just one session. Phil was sound asleep and I didn't want to wake him because he seemed quite content but around 11:00 a.m. I tip-toed into the bedroom and told him what a stud he was and how many stem cells they were able to collect. He smiled wide with his eyes closed.
He was very tired. His body was depleted from the last few days and he had just given it his all. It was difficult for him to pull himself up out of bed and get into the shower. He laid there about half an hour before he could muster the energy and then it was right back to the bed after that. I made him some tea and toast and that helped a little but his legs and feet felt like they weighed 100 lbs. each.
We met with Dr. Fay and his booming voice at Baylor Sammons to go over the results and to talk about the next step. We had in front of us the schedule for the stem cell replacement which would take place in three weeks and would start the second week in April starting with the OTHER monster chemo. This time, his hair really was going to fall out. He assured us of that. The schedule is packed and would require seven days a week travel back and forth to the hospital, downtown Dallas, for a good solid three weeks. This time it will take his immune system down to ground zero. This time, we are a little more apprehensive.
The consent form is the next consultation before the stem cell replacement. Why wasn't that done before they took his stem cells out? Trust is a big factor in this whole process and Dr. Fay talks with big words and big terms and I have to listen from underneath my eyebrows while chewing the inside of my mouth so I can concentrate on every loud and every determined word that comes out of his educated lips. Sometimes I catch myself distracted by his wiry eyebrows though and wonder if I could comb them up and snip them without him noticing. I shake his large hand goodbye and leave in a comma type state asking myself, "now what did he just say and what am I supposed to do?". It takes two of us to decipher but mostly Phil can talk his lingo. I just go along to be the comfortable side of life as opposed to the clinical side and reassure Phil that I can go with him on most of his appointments. It's a very important job they tell me.
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