Today is Day -3 for Mom. She needs to be at the hospital at 9 this morning. They will show her to her room and then she has today and tomorrow of chemo. The doctor told us yesterday that the kind of chemo they are giving her is fast acting and that within 12 hours of administering it her immune system will be dead and the chemo will be out of her system. They give her one day off (Thursday) to kind of regain some strength and then on Friday (Day 0) she will be given her 3+mils of her stem cells back. I do not really know what the measurement of 3 mils is in relation to the amount of blood that we have in our body (5 liters or so) but they bring in her frozen stem cells and thaw it right in her room, hook her up, and that is her transplant. However, they have mixed a chemical in with her stem cells that can be harmful to those of us not getting the transplant. For example, Katie my pregnant sister in law, can not visit with her for a little while, and the babies are going to stay away. In the next few days Mom will have a few whole blood or platelet transfusions to help build her blood up faster to what it should be. They used to give white cell transfusions but stopped because while it brought the immune system back up 2-4 days faster, the white cells tend to clot in the lungs and heart which is too dangerous.
How is Mom? Well over all I think she is just fine! We all, except for Colleen's hubby Brad who had to work, went to dinner last night at Red Lobster. I told Mom she could go anywhere she wanted and she chose Red Lobster because she really likes the cheese biscuts they bring out. Her sister's (my aunts) Colleen and Della came with us too. Aunt Della had a heart attack 2 weekends ago and is doing really well. Aunt Colleen told her they needed to come because she needed to learn to eat and like fish.
After dinner Mom and I went home and packed a bag for her stay. She has pj's that open in the front so she does not have to wear the hospital gowns and slippers of her own. We also packed her 2 television series she liked from the 90's so she could watch them. She took some knitting and I will take up some painting projects for her for after her transplant. She has a few books as well, so I think she is as set as she can be for a 3 week stay!
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