Stem Cell Replacement Begins

The first step of stem cell replacement is to make sure that you are healthy enough.  All of Phil's vitals looked great!  He couldn't be a more perfect candidate.  We were so happy about that because it puts him in a great position to possibly be cured, YES CURED of this disease.  Dr. Fay said that in his description and letter to Phil so we questioned him about it the next time we met with him.  Phil asked him about his assessment and the wording of his letter where he said the word cured.  Dr. Fay in his booming voice said without hesitation, "You're DAMN right I said CURED!"  We were never so happy to hear a cuss word in our lives!  That was clear, precise and from a doctor that has an incredible reputation.  We were off to the races. 

Phil was feeling great, eating well, in fact so well that he had gained back almost 12 lbs. and looking rather dapper if I might say so myself!  We were having fun and he was acting like his old self again.  He was doing some chores around the house and loving my cooking again.  Hallelujah!  It was so exciting!  The part that stunk was that he was going to have to submit to feeling like poop again so he could be committed to being well.  We had gone out for Valentines Day with our good friends Bobbie and Keith and had a wonderful time and met new friends and been able to do several other group things.  It felt good to start living again.  Phil actually had a glass of wine on Valentines Day.  He had not had a drop of alcohol since October.  Clothes started looking good on him again.  Instead of sitting on the back porch just staring off into space, he was pulling weeds, cutting the grass, trimming the trees.  Oh great day!  He was actually afraid that the insurance company would see him and cut off his disability.  What they didn't know is that he would pay for it at night but it sure felt good while he was able to do it. 

Waiting for three hours for a surgery room to become available. We were bored so we took pictures.

Phil went in for his initial testing to make sure everything was A OK for all to begin.  The next day we arrived at Baylor Sammons for the second port to be put in his neck.  He still had his port on his left side for all the previous chemo sessions but needed a second port for the next procedure.  Why?  We really don't know.  This second port was a line that was tunneled straight to the jugular vein.  I'm probably not saying that right but it rested on top of the heart.  The PA that performed the surgery and the nurses that assisted her all came out to talk to me during the procedure a few times.  They all made it a point to tell me that Phil was rather chatty and that he liked to sing.  This made me laugh and lightened my heart since I was rather tense earlier and shed a few tears as they accompanied him back to surgery.  He actually walked out of surgery with a clear patch over the ugly computer looking device that was hooked to wires coming out of his neck with three different tubes.  Yuck.

We got home and Phil was so tired so he laid down.  About ten minutes later Phil came out of the bedroom and asked me if he was bleeding.  Was he bleeding?  Oh my gosh!  The clear bubble bandage area was filling up with blood.  This is not for the light hearted!  It kept getting worse so we called the surgery center and I got on the phone with the PA that performed the surgery.  She wanted us to come back to the emergency room so they could take a look at it.  It was 4:00 and we were an hour away in rush hour traffic and she wouldn't be the one looking at it but they had the records.  Or we could go to the local Baylor Emergency room and they could look at it.  Well, that's another three hours at least at a hospital, another $100 visit.  They were really sorry, but.  I called my nurse friend Karen who was shopping at the grocery store.  She came right over and said that it was a slow leak and it wasn't life threatening.  Well, that was all Phil needed to hear.  He wasn't going to any emergency room after that!  It started filling up more and more and he started feeling pressure.  I sent  Karen a picture over my iphone.  Thank goodness for modern technology.  She wasn't going to him not to go but "professionally" she felt obligated to encourage us to get it checked out.  Phil was in medical sales for 25+ years.  He has been in and out of operating rooms for years so he took our handy dandy fireplace lighter and a needle and headed to the bathroom.  I had no idea he was doing this, nor did he tell me what he was about to do.  He heated up, he called it sterilizing, the needle and slid it up under the clear bubble bandage releasing blood all over his chest and stomach.  He said he was glad I wasn't in there.  Well, I'm glad too.  The bandage on top had bled through also.  It was getting nasty.  We think the problem is that he was taking an aspirin a day and his blood was thin.  Well, now that's a problem! 

The new port and beginning of the leaking.  It got a lot worse before Phil performed his surgery.

He slept on a incline as long as he could that night before throwing it to the bottom of the bed and awoke the next morning still alive and well.  I on the other hand didn't sleep well after reaching over and checking on him several times during the night to make sure he hadn't had a heart attack or bled to death or something.  If I live through all of this it will be a miracle!

We headed to Baylor Sammons the next morning where the attending nurse didn't seem too alarmed by the bloodied bandage.  She just said, "OK, we'll clean that up".  Glad we didn't spend the money to hear that last night.  Phil was hooked up to his pole who he has affectionately named Twiggy and the procedures began.  The first was hydration which was a two hour bag, then medication for nausea, then the killer chemo called Cytoxin for two hours, then two hours of hydration again.  It was a very long day. 

Phil with his best friend Maggie Mae watching t.v. after a very long day at the hospital.

At the end of the session the nurse rolled in an aqua colored bag with a 10 lb. bag of fluids hooked up to a battery pack.  This was attached to a very long tube that was hooked up to Phil's neck.  He was to keep this hooked up to his neck where the fluids from this large sack were going to be pumped into him all night long and into the next morning.  He was to tinkle every two hours.  Phil was more embarrassed about the color of the bag than anything.  We rolled out of the doctors office with the aqua bag following us.  Phil had to sit in the back seat with his new little friend.  It's really hard having to take a suitcase with you wherever you go.  You pretty much decide that moving around just isn't worth it sometimes.  I slept upstairs with the walkie talkies that we had communicated with early on when Phil first came home from the hospital so he could call me in an emergency.  One of us had to get some sleep.

The next morning we headed back to Baylor Sammons and sure enough the bag was almost empty.  Phil had tinkled 7 times in 10 hours.  They were pleased.  They said that some people just don't cooperate.  Phil was feeling tired and ready to just sleep by then.  We waited in the small room and the PA came in and when she got ready to remove the port, I excused myself.  Phil said that he could feel it coming out and that it was about 12 inches long.  Yuck.  There was a hole in his neck and she made him sit for another 20 minutes to make sure that he wouldn't bleed out or anything before heading home.  (I am actually throwing up in my mouth a little bit as I write this, seriously) We headed home without the bag this time and it always amazes me even though hubby is so tired, he is never to tired to "suggest" ways for me to drive differently than I am.

Phil was tired that day and I really didn't think he would be hungry but I had boiled some potatoes before I left for the hospital and I came home and made some home made potato soup.  He ate all of it and said it was the best he had ever had.  I'll have to put that one on my website!  That's about all he ate that day other than one bite of the Egg Mc Muffin on the way to the hospital that he had to quickly wrap back up before he got sick.  Applesauce was his choice for dinner.  His stomach felt a little unsettled before bed but slept well that night.  Day one down after the killer chemo, not so bad.