DAY 7,8,9,10

SO, i know i promised that no matter what i would blog every night but there was just no way...

day 7- Was my first day of the Chemo called Cytoxan
http://www.webmd.com/drugs/drug-52888-Cytoxan+IV.aspx?drugid=52888&drugname=Cytoxan+IV

This is the chemo that will stop and destroy my bone marrows ability to produce cells... I woke up sunday morning ready for the dose, being that i had done so well with all my chemo in the past. Well i was wrong, i had been pre warned that it was going to be bad but i thought i could skate through with non of the side affects.

They gave me my pre meds at 930 and 10:00 the chemo was hooked up..  within 15 minutes of it being started i could feel it running through my body... worst feeling ever; to feel this poison just destroying your body. I know its doing me good and part of whats going to cure me but its also doing me a lot of harm... after about 20 minutes,  my nose began to burn from the inside out. They said this might happen and it would eventually travel to my mouth.  Let me remind you that this dose of chemo is only 2 hours long but it was the longest two hours of my life. About 40 minutes in my legs began to hurt and i literally felt like my ovaries were being ripped out of my body. ( remember this is the chemo that destroys my ability to ever have kids again)... My nurses drugged me up with pain meds for the burning in my nose and the pains in my legs but nothing was strong enough at this point... by about an hour in the burning in my mouth began and oh my gosh it was bad. they call it "chili pepper mouth"but it was beyond that. It was the worst burning sensation I've ever felt. Between the pain meds and chewing on at least a gallon of ice, nothing seemed to work. I went through the last hour crying my eyes out because the pain was just so bad. After the two hours had pasted I was still in am enormous amount of pain but at this point the nausea started.

Im sure most of you would like to be spared the disgusting details but i was just sitting in my bed and out of no where i threw up; in my hands; luckily my bucket was right next to me and it didn't go anywhere else. I mean USUALLY you have some indicator that your about to throw up. NOT WHEN ITS CHEMO INDUCED.  About 5 minutes later Kim (Vics mom) got here to spend some time with me. (SHE DIDNT KNOW WHAT SHE WAS IN STORE FOR LOL). Not only was my mouth still on fire but i was still throwing up. On numerous occasions we were trying to have a conversation and out of no where i would start throwing up again.. Meanwhile they were still feeding me meds to try and calm everything down. Well finally i fell asleep..... About an hour later i woke up with the worst anxiety i have ever experienced (ALSO A SIDE AFFECT). I was freaking out, i needed to sit, i needed to stand, i needed to scream, i needed to curl up in a little ball and cry, nothing was making it go away... finally they got another med ordered for that and i passed out once more. .. a few hours later i woke up again, threw up a few more times and was dosed up with pain meds again for the pain in my legs.

Victor then got here and i was pretty much out of it the rest of the night, i would dose in and out, throw up, have a short conversation with him, then dose back out... He stayed the night with me, and the next morning i was dreading the second day of this horrible chemo. I think that the anxiety of knowing what to expect made my morning horrible. I knew how bad the second day was going to be. They said its usually 10x worse because you now have a double dose of the chemo in your system... and it was.

This time the side affects weren't immediate, they started about an hour and a half into the two our dose. They began again with my nose, then to my mouth, then feeling nauseous. My mom got here just in time, baring popsicles, sat here with me for a while. She then left to go get lunch with josh (my little brother) and during the time she was gone they had dosed me with a high dose steroid that needed "hospital approval". ALL of the side affects had gotten so bad that they needed to result to this. They came in and hooked up heart monitors to me (required to take this drug) and then they dosed me with it. Within 10 minutes i was asleep. I woke up and josh was here... i hardly even remember him being here, i remember him bringing me some food, me dumping it all over myself in bed, and falling back asleep, waking up and he was gone..... i woke up again and brittany and dillon were here, which i hardly remember; at all. i remember brittany writing me a note for my wall and thats about it.

I spent the rest of the day in this unexplainable fog, Thats what this drug does to you. It calms your whole body down and puts you a few steps above a medically induced coma. I could still get up on my own and eat on my own but i don't remember much of my day... I threw up a couple times that night and thats all i remember.

I woke up yesterday morning still feelings horrible. I felt like i had just gotta done drinking for 8 days straight, not that I've ever done that but i would imagine this is close to how it felt. My mind still wasn't working 100% for the first couple hours in the morning. I still couldn't eat.

Kim came again to spend some time with me and we figured out some wedding stuff, then she left and i showered and then victor came to spend a few hours with me. Then he left and my parents got here to spend an hour with me.

All in all it was the worst 3 days so far... i would honestly rather die then have to go through that pain and suffering one more time. They say thats the worst of it, and i honestly hope thats the truth because i couldn't handle anymore of it....

Today has been okay, i actually ate breakfast, showered, and I'm blogging, so that clearly means I'm feeling much better...

So the way that my days are calendared here is the days leading up to transplant and then the days after transplant, transplant being day 0. so I've gone from -7,-6,-5,-4,-3,-2... and today, today is -1...... I officially have 23 hours left until i will be transplanted with new cell that will hopefully save my life... give me more life to live, let me raise my son, be a wife to Victor, Be a better daughter, and a better sister. Hopefully tomorrow will give me that.... tomorrow is my day 0, the start of a new life.

Day 0 in the transplant world is considered your new Birthday.... I will officially now have 2 birthdays ( jealouuussss?, yup).. i have October 28, 1989, the day my beautiful mother gave birth to me... and i have May 31, 2012, the day that my body was reborn and my life was saved.  At 11:00 tomorrow morning I will officially have the genetic makeup and cells of a man somewhere in the US who has chosen to save my life. It really is such a selfless act to do something like this for someone.. someone you don't even know... all he knows about me is.... 22, female, A- blood type, LEUKEMIA.

at this point, after the torture that i had to educe the last few days, i can't make any promises as to if i will be able to blog everyday... i sure will try but the bad days, just might be too bad. no need to worry I'm sure ill be just fine, i hope.
Also, thanks to everyone who sent me cards and goodies in the mail <3





Dedication: Brittany
You and I have come an awful long way since we were little. As we have both gotten older we have grown much much closer and i have grown to love you more then ever. You have grown so much as a person the last 4 years, your not a little girl anymore and as nice as it is to see you come into your own, its still really hard to know that you don't need to quite as much anymore. You are so smart, so beautiful, so kind and i admire your strength.  You always try to do good for everyone around you no matter how it affects you and i love that about you. Your always putting everyone before your self and i think the last few months you've finally realized you come first. I know you've had some tough issue arise the last few months and I'm so glad that your getting better. you might only be 17 but i truly do look up to you, the person that you are, and the person that you aspire to be someday. I love you more then you will ever know little sister. you'll always be my best friend.
I love you, forever.

wish me luck <3

xO
Mel