Finally a good night's sleep.

The visit to the BMT clinic at the Huntsman Hospital Wednesday lasted until after 1:00 PM because of a 4 hour infusion of Aredia. I took my Vancomycin with me and one of the nurses hooked it up midway through the infusion and afterwards they changed out the needles in my port, which needs to be done once a week. For the first time they did not draw any blood. I finished the last of the Vancomycin yesterday, but still have 8 more Lovenox injections to give myself, not fun but not as painful as when Nancy gave me one.

I expected to get a new prescription for Ambien while there on Wednesday, but Humana still would not authorize a full prescription, so the pharmacist did sell me 5 10 mg pills for $4.33. My previous prescription had been for 5 mg pills and I had been told that I could take one at bed time and another half way through the night if taking one at bedtime was not enough. So I cut one of the 10 mg pills in half and took it at bedtime and slept until about 1:15, but could not go back to sleep so got up after another hour or so and went in the other room to read for awhile and then took the half pill before getting back into bed. It did not help me sleep until perhaps 5:30 and I was awakened by the alarm. Thursday night I decided to take the 10 mg pill at bedtime and had an almost identical sleeping experience (read for an hour or so, toss and turn for hours, finally fall asleep shortly before the alarm went off). Friday I was dog-tired and napped a couple of times during the day in preparation for entertaining a couple of friends that evening (something Andrea, the PA, had encouraged us to do, she said we could have friends in to play bridge so long as the group was small and nobody had the sniffles).

I finally had the best night's sleep last night that I have had since this dread disease struck. I split one of the Ambien pills, took half at bedtime, and the other half about 3:00 AM and went right back to sleep every time I had to get up for the restroom. The alarm didn't wake me this morning (because it wasn't set) and I didn't finally wake up until about 8:30. I am splitting the pill again tonight to learn whether it was a one time event.

The next visit to the BMT clinic is Monday morning when I am to be there at 6:30 to prepare for the battery of test they ran on me prior to accepting me as a transplant patient. It will be another long day, but I hope we will have time to inspect the Guest House on our way home to determine what we will need to take with us. I continue to feel good and am eating well, but am not gaining any weight. I was at 171 this morning and am puzzled that I do not gain weight.

Nancy suggested that she and her family could help us move into the U. of U. Guest House on Labor Day so I told her that I would call and find out if we could move in a day early, but when I checked the reservation that Jeri had made for us I found that it started on September 4, not the 8th as I wrote in my previous blog. So I then called the Guest House to try to change the reservation to the 3rd and was able to do so. The next round of chemo is said to be so hard to endure that getting moved before it begins must be a good idea.