Day 5

I have had the Central Venous Catheter inserted today. It is a catheter that goes into the vein that leads to the heart and it is positioned and held with stitches on the right side just below the collar bone. It has 3 ports to allow for all the different infusions I will receive including the chemo, blood products, medicines, and the all important "stem cells". This catheter can stay in place for months and saves a lot of needle sticks. One other advantage is that the strength of the chemo I will get could burn up the small veins and the one by the heart is much larger and the size  and proximity will help diffuse the chemo through the system faster. Lynne had to learn how to care for it and even demonstrate how before they will let us have the supplies. She did great. She's stayed true to her word of, "in sickness and in health". We just finished lunch and I am waiting for an ultrasound of a node in the neck that looked a little enlarged on the CT Scan and they wanted to take a closer look at it. It did not "light up " on the Pet Scan so that is a good sign. So that will round out Day 5. Tomorrow will  be Day -13 as we count down to the transplant on the 8th of March  as Day 0.

So tomorrow is the beginning of the transplant process. That was as far as I got on the writing. We have since gotten a call about 5:00 to tell me that Dr. Khouri wants to do a biopsy of the node and has set it up for tomorrow at 9:00. This has the appearance of wanting to wait with the chemo until the biopsy report comes back. We will know more in the morning. Our concern is that the node is in the thyroid and could explain my fatigue that I felt was increasing the last month or so. We'll keep you posted.  Day 5