Day +9 and +10 The marathon continues

Last week I found out that 2 of my girlfriends were both heading to Hawaii for the Lavaman Triathalon today! Steph is from Denver and Cindy is from Seattle. I admire them both for many reasons and adore their strength and commitment to take on the marathon life style! ( I hope you guys don’t mind that I added in your pics but they show us all that to work hard and finish even stronger is not easy but you pulled it off and shared that moment with me today! It meant so much to me that we were all connected through the day). After I got the quote poster from Cindy, I re -wrote it on my white board in my hospital room so I see all the time. Great visual to keep me and my team on the right path, hour by hour!

So here I am in my own ” marathon” of sorts and thinking in terms of how to plan, prepare, train, and the commit to it and perform it, very similar.

I am half way home now. Day 9 & 10 were the days I bottomed out of white blood cells and platelets. Most everything else is pretty normal, which is fascinating isn’t it? That this chemo can go in and specifically choose what to kill off and what not to kill off.

But then things show up, like a mystery rash? Morning appointment on Friday was pretty average with “let’s watch this rash. “. By Friday night appointment it became ” I don’t think its from engraftment because that would be a couple days too early” but ” I am not sure it’s from a medicine we gave you” so let’s watch it. Then they decided to give antibiotics just in case ( I have zero immune system left now) and then after 4 hours of IV, for some unknown reason, I develop urine retention?!? More than you want to know, I get it! But that means, I couldn’t figure out how to pee? Like my brain just lost the signal to say “go”? It’s about 10 pm and they tell me if I can pee by 2:00 am I can go home, if not, they will admit me. No luck- so weird! And now we are exhausted 😴 Connee was with me the whole time. So finally at 3:00 am they make the call to admit me. Fine- just let me sleep and sent Connee home to the dogs.

Wake up Day 10 – Saturday pretty exhausted with just a few hours of sleep.

Dr’s come around, labs are taken. Discussions about rash, confused bladder? Review meds- seriously, so many they have moved on to page 2. Amazing how they can all co-mingle together in a body. I think the latest one called tramadol gave me the rash but they disagree. I didn’t like it anyway so I stopped it and told them that if the rash went away in 48 hours, when the med gets out of body, then I win! They laugh at me. And tell me I need to stay in the hospital for 3-4 days while I start this engraftment. I guess its better this way because it will force me to slow down and it will be easier them to track all of these weird little mystery symptoms.

So, I guess this is the part of a marathon when your past the starting excitement and you are getting into the routine and then some aches and pains start to to show up. And your brain has been trained for this, so it kicks in and gives you the courage to push harder with each forward movement?!

I am going with that philosophy.

Sean, my son, who lives in Boulder, with his wife, Lauren, flew out to MN today to see me! They stopped by for a visit and then I sent them home ( our temporary Rochester home) and asked them to make dinner for me and bring it back.

They made baked fresh salmon and roasted potatoes and it was delicious 😋

Thanks guys! Best hospital dinner ever! I wonder how you will top it for Sunday night?

And the really good news of the day…..

I figured out how to pee again. Thank goodness that was short lived …..

GOOD LUCK – Steph and Cindy! I will try to catch some live feed online later today.

Until tomorrow, thanks for all of your love and support!