Count Down to Transplant

It's a special weekend. It's the President's Day weekend in Seattle, the Family Day weekend in Saskatchewan and Arnie's pre-transplant weekend. Arnie will receive chemotherapy on Sunday, Monday & Tuesday. Wednesday is mostly a 'day of rest'. On Thursday Feb 19th Arnie will have radiation in the morning and his stem cell transplant in the evening. It's exciting to know we are so close to this important day.

Chemo went well today. Arnie didn't experience any immediate side effects like nausea or vomiting. He did have multiple blood draws to check his health and to collect samples for research studies taking place at the clinic. We are grateful that all the blood samples now come from his Hickman catheter and the painful pokes are over.

Last Friday we learned all about TBI (total body irradiation). We met the radiation oncologist, a medical resident, two radiation technologists and the clinic nurse. They all provided instruction and reassurance that the radiation is very well tolerated. The team will use one day of low dose radiation to damage Arnie's immune system just before the transplant. This will allow the new donor cells to flourish. We learned TBI is dosed on body 'thickness' so they made careful measurements of Arnie from head to toe. The treatment will take about 45 minutes.

On Friday we picked up a huge bag filled with new medications Arnie needs to start. We were also given a gigantic medication organizer to keep us on track. You know you have a lot of medications when you need an organizer called the "Medi-chest Large". Sadly, even the Medi-chest Large doesn't have enough spaces so we have a second organizer we purchased to use as well. On Friday evening, our home health care provider delivered a big box of sterile supplies we will use to take good care of Arnie's Hickman catheter. Our little apartment is filling up.

Leading up to this weekend, we tried to cram in as much tourism as possible. Last Wednesday evening we went to see the musical "The Lion King". The show was absolutely wonderful. The story is the same as the Disney movie, so all the characters are animals. The cast accomplish this using amazing costumes, masks and puppets. The show starts with a procession of life sized giraffes, hippos and elephants walking down the aisles to the stage. Simba the lion cub was played by an 11 year old boy who was just great. Our favourite character was Rafiki the baboon, played by a South African actress with a fabulous voice and the ability to speak in Africian dialects. I'm so glad we had the opportunity to attend.

Our last treat this week was an opportunity to get together with my brother Bob. We haven't seen him in quite some time, so it was wonderful to have this visit and know we can see him a few more times before we leave for home.

Thanks again for your notes, good wishes and prayers. We are so grateful for your friendship and support.
Arnie & Brenda