Day +09 – Day +16: I've gone much too far for you now to say… That I've got to throw my castle away

My friend told me that she was having difficulty connecting some of the lyrics to the content of the blog post.  I hope you people aren’t having the same problem… There is no correlation!  The lyrics are absolutely random. 

Since I’ve gotten so far behind, I’m going to have to speed you through the next week to catch you up to the present day so that we can continue this accordingly.  I apologize to everything that gets chopped in the “highlight reel” edition, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.  It’s been much harder writing in here than I had hoped, but I’m thinking in the future, with my health improving as it is, I will be much better at it.  Hopefully.  }o-)

 

So here we go.

Day +09:

This day was pretty tough for me.  My friends’ (the Georges) daughter had a fever of about 104 and they were a bit frazzled.  Not only did it concern me, but Tom and Chrissy were supposed to come by that day and now they couldn’t.  She’s OK, though and everyone’s alright.  It sucks that I missed out on seeing them because I lean on them so much, but they’ve been so great about spending time with me over the past few weeks, I GUESS I can give them a pass since their daughter was sick.  I guess.  }o-)

Lucky for me, Anita was right there by my side and filled in for my friends caring for their daughter.  It was another easy relatively easy day, despite needing to get blood to keep me above the 8 gram mark.  Mind you, a hemoglobin count of 8 is not that much to begin with.

^{Here’s Anita playing with the fish bulb effect on the camera.}

^{And here’s a picture of Anita and her douche.}

---

Day +10:

After missing out on two of my most important friends the day before, it was important to get back on the horse, right?  Well, enter the man known as Steve, AKA the Captain.  Again, a part of my core friends and my brother from another mother.  We spent some time playing video games, playing Uno, and just general BSing.  Unfortunately, our time together was cut a little short in the middle as I was hauled away from the room to have a sonogram of my foot made.  It had blown up to about the size of a small Honda at this point and the doctor’s wanted to make sure there were no clots or anything too serious.  We still got in our fun and Steve, Anita, and I had a great time together.  I’m lucky to have both of them in my life, especially Steve.  Life without the wife is something someone can get used to.  Life without Figgy Pudding?  Why even bother.

Hush baby, daddy’s here… Everything’s going to be OK.  (One of the creepiest pictures Steve has ever taken)

Gotta flash the Figs if you’re down for the Hershey Highway

A Rousing battle of Uno

We had 4 Draw 2s in a row.  Nice shuffle job, Steve.

We got you..

Tsss tsss tsss.

---

Day +11:

Keeping the streak of love alive, on day +11, my pre-in-laws decided to visit me.  I wish they could’ve stayed a while longer because I love family (or almost family), but whatever.  It was great to see them and spend some time with them.  It’s nice to know that they’ve accepted me and treat me as party of their family because damn, do I love their daughter/sister.  For real.

Of course Shaney plops himself down in MY chair.  The chair no one else is supposed to sit in.  Sure it didn’t say that, but he should’ve known that the most comfortable chair was off limits!   }o-) I like your hat, Shane.

Awww.  Great picture!  Also, does Anita’s dad have a faux-hawk??!?

After the Ramnath’s left, Mom and I decided to take some pictures on our own.

Finally taking away what Lady Clairol grants my mom every month.

Awwwww.  How did Pushpita give birth to a black dude?

That’s more like it.

---

Day +12:

Nothing crazy that happened today.  Of course, by now, my feet have now ballooned into pontoons and they’re now causing me more pain than the Mucositis.  Just basically hung out with my mom and sister..  Nothing crazy.

---

Day +13:

Lucky number 13, I guess?  On this day, I was actually visited by my primary hematologist, Dr. Stadtmauer.  He had a very wide smile on his face and a paper in his hand.  His news?  For the first time in 13 days, I had produced “poly cells.”  What does that mean?  ENGRAFTMENT!  The stem cells had started to take hold and have started proliferating healthy cells through the blood.  The process of recovery had officially begun.  We’d officially won.  Rejection and everything we’d been scared of since day 0 had literally been obliterated.  Basically, my job had been reduced to trying to remain reasonably healthy for the next 200 or so days and not get a real bad case of Graph Vs. Host Disease and I’M CURED!  Sure, that’s a gross oversimplification of what’s ahead of me and it’s going to be very difficult for me and everyone around me, but if you break it down into its basic elements, that’s what you get.  I am no longer suffering from Myelofibrosis.  Say it loud, say it proud.

I can’t begin to tell you what this news made my mother and I feel like.  Everything that we’d been fighting for and everything that everyone had gone through over the last few years; I almost broke out into tears when I heard the news.  Fine, I started crying.  I called Anita, I called my sister (who didn’t answer and got a prank played on her… more on this later), I called my friend Mike (who also sounded like he got a bit emotional), and told everyone that I was online with.

So, I played what apparently what turned out to be a really nasty practical joke on my sister.  When I called her, she didn’t answer immediately and I decided to play what I thought would be a fairly innocent joke.  When she finally did call, I told her that there was some news that I would have to share with her when she got here, and I told her in a fairly morbid fashion.  With my foot being mistaken for a pontoon, the doctors had started prescribing steroids which they were hesitant to do as it could negatively affect the engraftment proceedings.  It was supposed to mildly disturb her and make her come to the hospital room faster than she normally would.  It didn’t.  Apparently, she freaked out and called a bunch of people to watch her kids and BOTH her and Craig came by because she was so nervous about what was going on.  When she found out, she appropriately dubbed me an asshole and began to notify the huge network of people praying for me/thinking of me of the new title I had earned.  They were all happy to hear about the engraftment and agreed I had earned the title by a somewhat wide margin.  }o-)  I might be an asshole…. But I’m an asshole that’s alive!!

This is Dr. Stadtmauer, the man that literally saved my life.  If you have ANY hematological issues and have access to UPENN, I highly suggest you come see him.  If he found my life worthy of saving, he’s bound to do the same for you.  If he weren’t a Phillies fan, he’d be perfect.

My mom and the man she dubbed a god for saving my life.

---

Day 14:

It would be pretty difficult to follow the awesomeness that was Dr. Stadtmauer’s visit, but Amanda and Tim were sure to try!  They drove down in the early evening and were kind enough to spend some time with me.  We got to discussing what an amazing job Anita does of finding deals.  Seriously.  That girl can find herself some deals.  Every week she gets a box in the mail for some stuff that she figured out how to get for free.  That chick is seriously amazing. 

This day was also the day I saw an Ophthalmologist about the problems I’d been having with my eyesight.  Acute vision had turned difficult and when I would play video games, my eyes would be very dry.  I was afraid that the radiation had caused eye damage and I was going to need glasses!  I pride myself on the fact that I have such good vision and would be devastated if I had to wear glasses (plus, I make fun of Anita for being blind as a bat all the time and I’m not ready to give her the satisfation of having to wear glasses… Not yet, at least).  Anyway, the doctor looked into my eyes and said while they were extremely dry, they were some of the healthiest eyes she had ever seen.  Take THAT, Anita!  Bwahahahahahaha.

The Ophthalmologist dilated my pupils so she could check out my eye.  Look at how dilated my eye is!

Tim and Amanda as they showed up with the Yankee fridge in the background.

Tim really stepped up his game on the facial hair front in solidarity with his facial hair loving friend who is out of commission after losing all his own hair.  }o-)

Smile!

Look at how good Amanda is at making silly faces!

 

I mean, she is really going for it!

---

Day +15

Today was supposed to be dedicated to Anita and myself, but I was just so tired.  The girl showed up at about noon and all I did for the next 5 hours was sleep!!!  All those late nights spent ROMMING had finally caught up with me, I guess.  Lucky for us, I found my wind again that night around 6:30 and we spent the time watching movies and just being silly in general.  I really love her.  We also Skyped with Rita at night.  Gujjus are cheap.

---

Day +16

I saw Dr. Garg for the last time today which made me sad.  He’s been the resident here that has been here for me since day +1, but he’s out of rotation now and going on a short 2 week vacation (well earned since he’s had to deal with the likes of me!).  From his assessment, he doesn’t think that I’ll be here for more than another 10 days!  How great would that be? To be home in a little over a week?!?  Oh man, I would love it.  Please!  Bring it on!

The rest of this day was spent lazing around with Anita.  We spent some time looking at men’s wedding bands.  I think I want one with a meteorite in it.  How cool would that be?  Yeah.  Exactly.

 

And tha’s about it, folks!   You are all caught up!  I tried to keep it short and to the point!  I apologize if I skipped over anything important!