We know where we are and exactly how fast we're going

[desperance]

Day Minus Four, and this is the last of the easy days we get, this side of the countdown. Well, they're all fairly easy for me, obvs: all I have to do is shop and cook and wash dishes and keep an eye on Karen. But we've had a week of largely being in the apartment with no calls on our time; she's had injections morning and evening (when the doctors come to us), a regime of many pills, and that's been it.

Tomorrow morning, we go to hospital for a surgical procedure, to fit Karen with a port below her clavicle, a direct line into a blood vessel for both input and output. Thursday they tap her precious bodily fluids for a few hours, to filter out 117 million stem cells; then they immediately turn the tap the other way and pump in more chemo. And more yet on Friday. Saturday is Day Zero, when her stem cells are returned to her to start restoring an immune system, hopefully one with better discipline, that won't be trying to eat her hereafter.

These few days are going to be the hardest, by the doctors' own admission. After that it's a couple of weeks of recovery in more or less isolation. If you're curious, look up "neutropenia". Karen gets to eat astronaut food and/or very well-cooked meat & fish. No salads, no fresh veg, no fruits. We wear masks, and she probably doesn't leave the apartment. She probably won't want to.

And then we're done, or at least they're finished with us. We come home (and trust me, you have no idea how attractive those words sound), and spend the next year rebuilding Karen's health. Lots of home-cooked food (hah!), lots of rest. A degree of care in social contact [get your flu shots, people! Herd immunity is going to be our friend, for the foreseeable future]. An ongoing drug regime for a while, but nothing onerous. Oh, and making friends with the cats again, because we will smell of the vet.

Comments

[al_zorra]

This is really difficult for you both -- worse for Karen, of course because she's the one getting taken apart and put back together, and the road back is such a long one.

Much admiration for the courage of both of you deciding to take this journey. This can't have been an easy decision to do it and set off and now to keep on going.

As They Say, the longest journey is still only one step at a time.

Love, C.

[shewhomust]

We had our flu jabs today. I hope this works its sympathetic magic.

(The touch screen booking-in system told us that our appointments were wth 'Mr flu flu')

[sovay]

Oh, and making friends with the cats again, because we will smell of the vet.

I wish Karen the easiest of Days Zero and recovery and both of you the best of luck with the cats.

[swan_tower]

Well, they're all fairly easy for me, obvs

Comparatively so -- but hey, what you're doing is hard, too. It's never easy to be support for a loved one going through difficult things.

A degree of care in social contact [get your flu shots, people! Herd immunity is going to be our friend, for the foreseeable future].

Ah, crud. I've been debating whether to get a flu shot this year, because sometimes I get a shot and I'm fine, while other times I get a shot and walk away with a keloid scar. But I don't want to have to avoid you guys for six months to a year for fear of being the one who compromises her health. I will have to consider.

[desperance]

Yeah. It hadn't occurred to me, but Karen's going to have to get all her childhood vaccinations again, because everything will be gone. There's a schedule, spaced out over the next two years; a flu shot is at the twelve-month mark. Until then, she's more than ordinarily vulnerable, and more than ordinarily at risk if she gets it.

[julesjones]

As someone with three out of four parents/parents-in law who have/had lymphoma/leukemia - please get a flu shot if you can, for the sake of those who can't. I get particularly twitchy about this because the first year after my mother was diagnosed that I failed to get a flu shot immediately they were available was the year my mother-in-law was diagnosed a month into flu season - and I came down with flu in the same week.

(The only reason I haven't had one already this year is that I've been ill and the pharmacy won't let me have a flu shot until it's clear my immune system isn't busy elsewhere.)

[swan_tower]

I completely understand, and am wholeheartedly in favor of vaccinations. If I didn't already have a shoulder full of painful scar tissue from previous shots, this wouldn't even be a question for me.

[madbaker]

Getting my flu shot today.

[desperance]

Thank you!

[ranunculus]

Strength to both of you through this really difficult process.

[mrissa]

Thinking of you both.

[madrobins]

Flu shot duly got. Not just for you guys (I have a susceptible chest, and flu is no one's friend) but with Karen in mind. Will be thinking of you both over the next hard days.

And sending up all the good thoughts that this dreadful hard work will do EXACTLY what it promises to do.

[anef]

You convey very clearly what a mountain you both have to climb. Very best wishes on the ascent.