So like...I make a random update about how I miss working and realize I've never written about the transplant. :P
Well....I had plenty of time to write about it, I just haven't felt like it. I'm so, so, so sick of talking about it. But let's see. I went into the hospital on August 1st and was able to go home after my UV meds at the end of each day until August 6th, the day before my transplant. Then I had to stay at the hospital as an in-patient.
I got the transplant on the 7th, and as far as procedures go, the transplant itself was "anti-climatic" as it was just basically a quick, glorified blood transfusion. But no one warned me how I'd feel afterward--it was awful. I felt totally out of it, like I wasn't even a person. I was totally nauseous, but I feel that word doesn't even come close to cutting it--I'm nauseous from chemo. This was...this was something else. It felt like a hangover x 1,000,000 mixed with the worst bad trip I've ever had times ten. I didn't even feel like a person. I know I said that already, but I can't emphasize enough how awful that feeling was and I wish someone had warned me about that! I couldn't even talk to describe how I felt because I felt so dazed and out of it (in the WORST way; not a fun drugged-up way) and I couldn't even describe to the nurses and doctors how I was feeling so that didn't help matters either, that's for sure.
Thankfully that experience only lasted about 48 hours, but it felt like an eternity. Then I gradually got better as my cells disappeared from the chemo and were replaced with the new cells from the transplant. It's kind of like induction chemo except a lot quicker, because of instead of waiting for your own, cancer-battered cells to come in, you're getting brand new cells growing in! It happened quickly, and I got to go home around day 22, if I recall correctly.
I've been home ever since and going to clinic at the hospital twice a week, and it's been exhausting. I'm immuno-suppressed and will be for 3 months minimum, and I'm on a TON of medication, many of which constantly interact with each other and do all kinds of things to my body, so my BMT (Bone Marrow Transplant) team has to keep switching then around. It's exhausting. The meds' side effects are exhausting. Going back and forth to the hospital is exhausting. Being constantly on the look out (and afraid about) GVHD is exhausting. It's all so exhausting and I'm tired and queasy all the time but I'm so glad to be at home, and that's an understatement.
And I'm so tired of talking about this, but I also know it's important to write it all down. I'll try to write more about it later.
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