Thursday: Day -2

All the excitement last night left me waking up with a headache this morning. For that they me Oxycodone and Tylenol. Still have the headache 3 hours later, but it is manageble. They took blood for labs around 4:00a. My platelets are low so I will need a transfusion of those today. I'm still on my first bag of Thymoglobulin. I'll be off the medication while I get the platelets. Likely won't be as late a night tonight as last evening. They have started me on Cyclosporene (anti-rejection drug).

I am not feeling hungry today at all and have to write everything down on a chart anyway. They brought me chicken and dumplings for lunch, which I think might have been good, had I felt like eating. They were flat dumplings. The kind I grew up with. I never see flat dumplings outside of home.

....time passes

I wound up sleeping most of Thursday. There were bouts of nausea and throwing up. No wonder people are not hungry. But I still don't get the "calories in any form" mantra. And "go back to eating healthy when all this is over". It would seem that healthy eating would be even more important now. And a good tomato sandwich sounds a lot tastier to me than a Pop-Tart.

Had to get more platelets on Thursday, but I totally slept through those. I'm getting steriods, Phenergan and Benadryl. 100mg IV Benadryl. That explains the sleepy and the headache.

My second dose of Thymoglobulin started around 10:00p. It's going in very slowly and no reaction. They say if you have a reaction the first time is the worst. And get this. It's a side effect. Don't you love medical terminology? It's a side effect because I have to have the drug. They are keeping me on oxygen. My breaths per minute are low for them. My blood pressure and pulse rate are also low for them. I told them that I meditate and that my rates are always on the low side, but they don't want to take any chances. And I'm glad they don't. But neither do I want them stressing out over something that is normal for me.

This morning my nurse came in and wanted to know my goal for the day. My goal for Thursday, 16 July is to send all kinds of postive good thoughts and karma for my donor to have a wonderful day. He is giving his stem cells for me today (if not enough collected he will go back tomorrow). This wonderful young man is the one who is making me 22yo again and giving me my new life. I am so grateful to him.