Stem Cell Extraction: Day 2

I slept a little last night; Karl not so much. Dex can take the blame.

On the flip side of Karl only getting about 3 hours of sleep is he didn't get sick! Knock on wood!

His appointment at Ambulatory Care was at 830 this morning, and again Stacey was his nurse (I apologize for the misspelling of her name yesterday). The Golden Nugget was waiting for him on the tray in front of his reclining chair. Karl asked if he had to take it since he hadn't been sick, but Stacey and I yelled in sync, "Take It!", so he did. As always the first task was to check his vitals. Blood pressure up a little but still within the normal range. He's a wuss where needles are concerned so he winced while the IV was inserted, and then sat back to get a bag of fluids and more sleep stealing Dex.

Public Health called after we were there for about 30 minutes to set up a time for the Neupogen shot on Monday coming. Another done tick on the list. Then we sat around, visited briefly with another MM patient who is a week ahead of Karl in the Stem Cell Extraction process, and then another MM patient who just completed the Stem Cell Transplant, and then sat around some more. And some more. There's a lot of waiting during this process.

Around 1030 Nurse Practitioner Charlene dropped by to check how he was doing after the chemo. She reminded Karl that while his immune system is probably okay now, but it will be dropping and by next Thursday it will likely hit bottom so he should take it easy and realize that by mid-week next week he will be confined to home and hospital. He will also need to wear a mask when he leaves the house. No hair loss yet (haha...a funny thing to say about a man who shaves his head and has no noticeable hair), but she reminded him that he will lose the stubble on his head and face, and likely his eyebrows, the hair on his arms and legs....

The last drops of fluid dripped into Karl's veins around 115. His swollen fingers told the tale. Then another check of his vitals (blood pressure down to low normal) and he was unhooked and set free.

Tomorrow and Sunday should be appointment and hospital free, with more Golden Nuggets and lots of water to help ease the way. I won't update again until Monday. Karl's gone to get his fix of Kent and Canadian Tire now while he is still permitted to go out in public!

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