Well, its Wednesday and still no word on when I’ll admit to
the hospital for my transplant. I went
downtown yesterday to get measured for my “lung shields” for the total body
irradiation. That was a very interesting
process. Apparently Dr. Nash has decided
that he doesn’t want my lungs to get the full dose of radiation, so the techs
who measured me will create little metal alloy shields to place on a piece of
what looked like plexi-glass that will be between me & the radiation
machine. The radiation techs were really
cool and showed me all around the radiation department and the room that I’ll
get my treatments in. Now that I’m
getting the “lung shields” I’ll be getting two different types of radiation. I will still get the type I described last
week where they pack a bunch of rice bags around me and I get radiation from
each side but now they will replace a few of those treatments with radiation
that will be “front & back”. That is
when I’ll have the lung shields and instead of sitting in a chair I sit on a bicycle
seat that is in this contraption that looks like one of the radiation techs
made in their garage! J
lol Once I get to that part of my
treatment I’ll see if the techs will take a picture of me in the bicycle chair
so you can see what I mean about it being kinda “pieced together”.
I have a new mantra these days. I got an email from my best friend (we have
known each other since 2nd grade).
She read the blog about the long term survival rates that Dr. Nash had
quoted me. She does research for a living
right now and reminded me that I am an “n=1” and this has never happened to ME
before so my chances of long term survival could (and will) be much
higher. (For anyone who doesn’t have a
research background, the “n” is the way researchers abbreviate the number of
subjects in their study). My best
friend’s words struck very close to home and my new mantra these days has been
“I am an n of 1”. I think I’m going to
print it out and post it in my hospital room (when I get to the hospital) J
Today I have another doc appointment (at the insistence of
Dr. Nash). Thankfully I don’t have to
drive all the way downtown and instead I get to see a doc here in Aurora. That’s a nice change of pace!
In “other news” Scotty is getting much better at
eating. Last night when I fed him I
think he managed to get more in his belly than on his bib (which is a first) J He’s been successful with sweet potato mixed
with oatmeal cereal and tonight we’ll try mixing in bananas! By they way, Jackpot is WAY more interested
in Scotty now that there is food involved!
Yesterday Scott spit/blew sweet potato mash on the table and floor at
one point and Jackpot was VERY excited to get to help “clean up” the mess J
-Chellie
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