January 23rd - Second Day of Transplant Chemo

I started my 4 days straight days worth of chemo yesterday morning. But I am also still suffering greatly from the two weeks of radiation. Things are getting harder. I'm not going too lie, but tell it as it is, no sugar-coating here. It has been challenging. But the nurses have been good about keeping my pain and nausea under control. I have severe radiation burns all over my upper chest and neck. When they finally put the new catheter in on Tuesday they used a large amount medical tape and dressing so when the tape had to come off yesterday, so did a lot of my skin. That of part my shoulder and neck are very painful and raw. The docs are a little concerned that I have so many burns and open skin wounds on my body but there is not much to do more then keep it as covered and protected as much as possible.

Swallowing has gotten down right impossible. They have me pretty heavily medicated to get me to swallow. Even water feels like needles going down my throat. I also have a lot of swelling and burning in my chest. I now have a PCA pump (I think it stands for "Patient controlled analgesia"). It works great cause it gives me a low dose of pain meds around the clock so I never wake up in horrific pain. Then there is a button that I can push whenever needed which gives a slightly higher dose to take the edge off, especially to swallow pills and meals.

Of course, this means I am feeling a lot more than fuzzy in the head lately (also there is chemo-brain too) and if you have emailed me, texted me or sent me a facebook message and I haven't been quick to respond to you because I'm eitherly heavily sedated or just plain sleeping through the pain.






BTW, this is either an alien transformer trying to abduct me from my hospital bed or just a harmless IV pole... you decide :)