Home for a rest

The stem cell collection was completed in the University of Utah BMT unit rather than in the Hunstsman BMT unit because I had been sent to the U. of U. Hospital late last Friday night with a blood infection. They started treating me with antibiotics and then Saturday morning started the stem cell collection, which lasted 4 hours per day until after noon yesterday with a total accumulation of more than 21 million stem cells.

I expected to be released imediately to return home, but the blood infection is persistent and I had to wait for another 2-hour antibiotic drip before being released. You can imagine how tired I was after lying on my back for 4 nights and days. The most annoying feature of it was that I was tethered to a "christmas tree" all the time and to the aphoresis machine all morning for 4 days. And could not move about without my attendant. A greater annoyance was that my bladder control has been affected by the various drugs and as soon as I felt any urge to relieve myself I had to head to the restroom immediately or I started to dribble down my leg and one time it was so bad I had to have a change of pajama bottoms; actually quite embarrassing.

The blood infection persists so a Lifepath nurse came around this afternoon to show me how to hook myself up to a pressureized antibiotic drip to be done tomorrow again and at the Huntsman Center Friday when I meet with my doctor for the first time since before starting treatment. The Doctor is Guido Tricot who is reputed to be the foremost expert in treating Multiple Myeloma. I have only seen him once but I like him and his co-worker, Dr. Zangari, who I also have only seen once. All the Hunstman Hospital personnel are very professional and I like all of them.

My posting got seriously behind once we moved form our home into Joanna's. I had taken my laptop computer, which was wireless capable at home, with me but I couldn't get a wireless connection at her place even though I had purchased a modem that should have allowed me to hook into their Comcast highspeed internet connection as a wireless user. Neither Dimitri (Mitso, Johanna's son who uses her basement as an office)or I could figure out how to make it work. So no posting except one day when we went home for a few hours. I took the laptop to the hospital and easily got a wireless connection, but my laptop would not recognize my password to allow me to work on the blog (I use the same password here on the office computer with no problem, so go figure). Finally, Nancy brought her laptop, and camera, to the hospital and added some blogs to the record (that is why they are in third person).