A New Home

This blog has moved to proseforpoems.com. Please update your bookmarks. All of the posts on here are accessible on the new site.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sometimes it's hard to let go

I'm celebrating a pretty major milestone this week, something that has been a long time coming. Nope, not the dog walking - that's so two weeks ago. I had my portacath removed! For those of you who don't know what that is, I'll explain... A portacath (port) is a central line that is surgically placed in your chest for infusions. Scott called it my usb plug. If you need a lot of infusions (chemo, IVIG, etc) and have crappy veins like I did, a port is a great thing. However, it is not without risk and hassle. Mine was 'installed' for IVIG back when they thought I had CIDP and needed endless infusions. I kept it as backup for the stem cell transplant and have been waiting to get it out since. You may recall that my first port got an infection and nearly killed me in 2018 (I wrote about it here ). A port needs to be used or at least flushed every 28 days, so you can never really forget about it. Needless to say, I was over the moon when I finally got the call two we...
Read more

The Main Event

Image
It's been over a month since my stem cell transplant so I guess it's time to try to sum it all up for a blog post. First of all I'm happy to say that I survived. It was an experience that I don't particularly care to repeat (even though I may have to in a few years) but now that I'm on the other end it wasn't too scary. Here's what happened... The day before the actual transplant I got a high dose of chemotherapy. The dose is so high that the stem cell transplant is actually necessary to reboot your immune system. In fact, most, if not all, of the unpleasantness to follow is a result of the chemotherapy. The transplant itself was remarkably quick and simple. I was in a room with a bed, a nurse, a doctor and a technician. They defrosted my frozen stem cells (looked like an ordinary bag of blood) and then hung it from a hook on the ceiling. The bag was attached to my central line (a kind of permanent IV in my chest) and then gravity-fed into me. It felt we...
Read more

2021 - Bon Appetit!

Image
 I had my three-month check-up last week and figured I should write a corresponding three-month blog update. I'm not going to spend time writing about the check-up though because THERE IS NOTHING TO REPORT. That's right, for the first time in years I had an appointment that really didn't need to happen. Everything is as it should be, which is just great.  I'll start with a belated Happy New Year! I hope you and your families had a nice and relaxing holiday. We had the best Christmas we've had in years. Scott and I (and Barney, of course) spent a couple of weeks just hanging out, eating, avoiding emails, and enjoying each other's company. We also spent a fair bit of time with my parents and their dogs. I was spoiled rotten, which was very nice;)  Life is falling into a relatively boring and stable routine and I wouldn't have it any other way. Well, I'd love my full mobility, energy, career, and hairstyle back, but let's not get carried away. I spend m...
Read more