Well I have officially been in the hospital for 13 days, and there is no clear end in sight. I wanted to update everyone on how I have been doing as well as explain how the stem cell transplant works. I checked into the hospital on December 21st. That day was what they called "Day -5." They use negative days to count up to the stem cell transplant and then the day you get your stem cells is referred to as "Day 0" since you are starting with a clean slate. After day zero they then begin to count up from there, so even though I have been here for 13 days, today is technically called "Day +7" Kinda confusing right? The main point is that I have been trapped in the same room for a really long time. Over all the process has gone as well as expected so far. By definition a stem cell transplant or is a procedure that replaces defective or damaged cells in a patient's bone marrow. It's a little confusing because it is also referred to as bone marrow transplant. The part of your bones called bone marrow make blood cells and contains cells called "hematopoietic" stem cells. These cells can turn into bone marrow, white blood cells, or red blood cells. I am getting what is called an autologous transplant . In an auto transplant your get your own stem cells (mine were harvested and frozen back in July) placed back into your body after receiving several days of STRONG chemotherapy. So basically that means that on "Days -5, -4, and -3" I went through 6 rounds of chemo. This chemo was different from the chemos I had been receiving in the past. The hope was that since I had built up a small tolerance to my regular chemo, this new chemo would be strong enough to kill off any remaining cancer cells that I had left in my body. Those three days went pretty well, with the only downside being that they scheduled chemo each night at 9 pm. Clearly no one informed them that my bedtime was 8 pm! Besides being a little bit tired, the first three days went by fast. After the rounds of chemotherapy, I was given two days to rest. These two days happened to fall on Christmas Eve and Christmas, so it was nice to not receive chemo on a holiday. I was able to have my family come visit and was even broken out of the hospital for a bit to be wheeled around Forest Park. Luna also made her first debut on the stem cell floor as an emotional support animal. Then on December 26th I received my stem cells. Trust me when I say that it sounds a lot more exciting than it actually was. On stem cell day they brought in a large turkey roaster filled with water. This was used to thaw my frozen stem cells directly in the room. They brought in the bags of frozen stem cells that were mixed with preservatives. Once the bags were thawed (which only took about 2-3 minutes in the water), they had to immediately hang them into my IV drip to be administered. This process had to be done quickly because at room temperature the preservative actually starts to harm the stem cells. Once they hung the bag, it only took about 4 minutes for all of the stem cells to get into my body. The weirdest part about a stem cell transplant is actually the smell. People had warned me before that the preservative when thawed smelled like creamed corn. And man, were they right! Not only did it smell like it, but I also had the taste of corn in my mouth. To help with this I sucked on a couple of candy canes to try to distract myself from the taste and smell. Because the stem cells were still cold when they entered my body, it gave me the chills, so I had to wrap myself in several different blankets. All together the whole stem cell transplant took about 30 minutes. To help my body accept the stem cells better, they gave me lots of medicines and drugs to help calm me down. Even though it was a short process, the longest part of my day was the wonderful nap I took afterwards. In the days following the stem cell transplant I was closely monitored as my white blood cells and red blood cell count began to drop. This was as expected and was a result of the high dose chemotherapy. If I would not have received my stem cells, there was a chance that my counts would not have recovered on their own which can be potentially fatal. Through this process I have learned that a stem cell transplant (or bone marrow transplant) is really just another way of getting intense chemo and then recovering. Over the next few days I began to develop several fun side effects from the chemo. The first one was a general feeling of exhaustion. Most days I was so tired I couldn't even sleep. Then around "Day +3" my platelet count bottomed out and my blood wasn't able to clot as easily. I started to get bad nose bleeds that were hard to stop. To help with this the doctors gave me several transfusions of platelets. The nausea and vomiting were also very present. However, the worst side effect so far is the mouth sores from developing mucositis . This is when the membrane lining of the digestive tract gets inflamed and swollen. It feels like I have burned my entire mouth on a really hot piece of pizza and it won't go away. They have given me lots on pain medicine but there is nothing they can do to heal my sores besides sit around and wait, which we are doing a lot of right about now. It looks as if I will be in the hospital for one to two more weeks. They are unsure of the date because it will be determined by how my blood levels bounce back. So far I have been doing pretty well with being stuck in the hospital because I know that it is the best place for me to be right now. Hopefully the rest of this process will go smoothly and I will be home before I know it!
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AuthorMy name is Kimber Graham and I have 25 years old. I am a second grade teacher, been married for a year, and have a six month old puppy named Luna. Oh and I have ovarian cancer. This blog is used to document my journey through this time. It may not be perfect but it is honest. Archives
February 2020
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