Transplant day 0: Receiving cells

It was an anxiety-ridden day, but all went well. Around 1pm all sorts of people were in the room – the defroster, the nurse practitioner administering the cells, my oncologist’s assistant, two nurses, my mom, my brother, his wife and tons of prayers and spirits of good will — in a tiny tiny room. (Oh … and myself)

All went very well except for a little weariness and discomfort in bed later, and some food issues. It was a long day but a good one.

I’m writing to you now from the beginning of day 1 and I feel fine but the journey ahead will test the binding of the new stem-cells to my body and see what happens from there.

I know my blood type will change – I’m formerly A-positive, my donor is B-positive – and I can’t wait to see what else changes. By far the biggest outwardly change is my name.

It is typical to consider day 0 your new birthday and as such, at events such as this, my rabbi even advised that I can add to my name. So I have decided to add “Yigal Chaim” – liberated/recaptured life – to my Jewish name and my rabbi will name me in services for Yom Kippur.

The whole religious aspect of this adventure still rings out sharply for me. “Hayom harat olam” – today the world is born we declare as part of the Yom Kippur liturgy. I can’t help but feel a whole new me is born too.

May we all be inscribed a happy and healthy new year – gamar chatimah tovah!

Strength and love,
Seth

Please remember to support us for the Light the Night Walk:

To make a donation, please visit:
http://www.active.com/donate/ltnNewYo/2154_krpalmer

To join the team and walk with us in NYC on October 4th (of in Philadelphia on September 29th) – my mom and Voodoo are team captain (I’ll be in the hospital in the middle of the transplant procedure), please visit my recent blog entry with directions to join: http://survivingleukemia.wordpress.com/2007/09/09/light-the-night-walk-nyc-philla/
(it’s not the greatest user experience – my apologies in advance)

Transplant days -3, -2: Total Body Irradiation (TBI)

I think my anxiety leading up to this procedure was probably disproportionate to what the actual experience was. Fear of the unknown. It was fairly simple: put me  on a table, close the door and a low-level buzz for about12 minutes. Then they came in, literally flipped me over and 12 minutes later I was done.

Now I’m definitely feeling some weariness but am not totally wiped out. Some nausea but Atavan has been helping.

And while I was roasting today, they were allo-cleaning my room — making it biologically safe for me. It’s a cleaning that takes 4 hours to do and everything is scrubbed down and reset and wiped down. And then my first thing upon coming back was taking an antimicrobial shower. (That will be every day now.)

Tomorrow’s the last day of TBI and then the transplant on Thursday. Will write again as time permits.

Strength and Love,
Seth

Please remember to support us for the Light the Night Walk:

To make a donation, please visit:
http://www.active.com/donate/ltnNewYo/2154_krpalmer

To join the team and walk with us in NYC on October 4th (of in Philadelphia on September 29th) – my mom and Voodoo are team captain (I’ll be in the hospital in the middle of the transplant procedure), please visit my recent blog entry with directions to join: http://survivingleukemia.wordpress.com/2007/09/09/light-the-night-walk-nyc-philla/
(it’s not the greatest user experience – my apologies in advance)

Transplant day -4: Chemotherapy again

They are pumping me full of saline solution – liters and liters of the stuff – to keep my bladder irrigated which is the standard procedure to avoid infection. The corollary effect, however, is a lot of … uh … discharge. The Chemo is starting to make me queasy but it’s being managed. My appetite is already gone and I’m feeling sleepy and a little down, but generally still feel like I’m on a good track.

Tomorrow we start radiation. That scares the shit out of me. But I have CDs with me that they can play whilst I’m being zapped so hopefully that’ll be ok. It may be difficult to write for a couple of days given the upcoming procedure, but I’ll try.

Strength and love,
Seth

PS: Please remember to support us for the Light the Night Walk:

To make a donation, please visit:
http://www.active.com/donate/ltnNewYo/2154_krpalmer

To join the team and walk with us in NYC on October 4th – my mom and Voodoo are team captain (I’ll be in the hospital in the middle of the transplant procedure), please visit my recent blog entry with directions to join: http://survivingleukemia.wordpress.com/2007/09/09/light-the-night-walk-nyc-philla/
(it’s not the greatest user experience – my apologies in advance)

Thank you.

Transplant, day -5: Chemotherapy

It was a fairly uneventful day after getting a foley line installed. I received my chemo today along with anti-nauseau drugs, some magnesium and a bunch of vitamin E. I had a diuretic to help get some of the fluid out of my bladder which is being flushed and that’s worked well. I’m tired earlier than usual so I’m going to sleep. Will try to write to up the blog as I can through the process.

Strength and Love,
Seth

PS: Please remember to support us for the Light the Night Walk:

To make a donation, please visit:
http://www.active.com/donate/ltnNewYo/2154_krpalmer

To join the team and walk with us in NYC on October 4th – my mom and Voodoo are team captain (I’ll be in the hospital in the middle of the transplant procedure), please visit my recent blog entry with directions to join: http://survivingleukemia.wordpress.com/2007/09/09/light-the-night-walk-nyc-philla/
(it’s not the greatest user experience – my apologies in advance)

Thank you.

LIGHT THE NIGHT WALK – NYC & PHILLA

Please come walk with us in NYC and in Philadelphia as we raise awareness and money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Mom is team captain in both cities and you can sign up to walk and pledge money at lightthenight.org.

To join our team, go to http://www.lightthenight.org. From the top navigation, click on Register. On the next page, click on Join Team. You will be taken to a screen where you can search for our team: change the first pull down to search by team name, type “Seth’s Solemates” in the search field, then click on the Search button. The results page will show two walks – one at Penn’s Landing (Philadelphia on September 29th) and one at the Brooklyn Bridge (NYC on October 4th). Click the corresponding join button next to the team you want to walk with or support – you’ll be asked to register and just follow the directions from there.

This is very important to me and my family. We look forward to you joining us!

Thank you for your continued support!

Strength and love,
Seth