(not necessarily in that order)
It was a three-vaccine day! Another big step towards getting my immune system completely back up to speed after last year’s stem cell transplant.
As I was thinking about it this evening, the image of a fortress came to mind — signifying that my body’s defenses are getting back into full fighting mode.
One consequence of these past few days of intense activity was missing a fairly important anniversary. In fact, it was on October 12, 2022 that I had my final doctor’s appointment at UC Davis Medical Center and was declared officially “done” with the hospital part of my stem cell transplant process.
I still had a few (preventative) prescriptions to take. I also had to keep in mind that rebuilding my brand new immune system would take time…as well as the eventual repeat of all my childhood vaccinations.
Now it’s hard to believe all that was going on just over a year ago. It simply doesn’t seem quite real.
But the feelings of intense gratitude remain and are very real indeed. I’m pretty sure they’ll be that way forever!
I’m going back and reading some of my blog posts from a year ago. It’s the only way I can really tune back in to what life was like in the lead up to my stem cell transplant.
We had been in Sacramento for a few days at this point. The tunneled catheter was in my chest and we were preparing to have my stem cells collected the next day.
Hard to believe what a different reality that was compared to now. As I reflect on it, I think a part of me is in a sort of “reactionary” mode — experiencing lots of resistance to discipline, consistency, focus.
Maybe that’s why I’m so into upgrading my garden at the moment. Creating wine barrel planters is a way to channel my energy into something productive, but that’s also a treat.
I spent a fair amount of time this morning talking on the phone with a friend who’s dealing with a serious cancer diagnosis and difficult treatment scenario. She’ll probably be facing a stem cell transplant in a few weeks and wanted to talk with me about my experience.
I was happy to answer questions, listen to her concerns, and just generally offer support. What I didn’t anticipate was how our conversation would make me realize how distanced I felt from an experience that was unbelievably intense at the time.
It brought to mind something I read just the other day (can’t remember where, unfortunately), about how — while our human brains will remember that something was painful — we can’t actually feel that pain again (which must be why women are able to give birth multiple times).
Of course, it all started coming back to me as I dredged up my memories. And I suddenly realized that this time last year I was in full-on transplant preparation mode.
To bring it into clearer focus, I went back to my July 2022 calendar and discovered that from July 11-29 I had twenty different medical appointments — from lab draws and chemo infusions; to oncologist, cardiology, pulmonary, and physical therapy appointments; culminating in my second bone marrow biopsy.
And now? It’s hard to believe all that really happened.
Rather strange, actually.
I knew going in what the various components would be but I could never have imagined how it would actually feel.
It started, of course, with the high dose chemo; was followed by lots and lots of IV fluids; then the stem cells were transplanted back into my body.
But what puts it all over the top is the reality of being in a bed in a hospital room for hours every day. Today was from 7:30am to 6:00pm, for example (although it was the longest and unlikely to be repeated).
So, despite doing nothing but lying around all day, I’m exhausted. Nighty night.