Vascular Catheter Day

My parents bundled me up like a two year old, giant pink mittens instead of my stylish suede gloves. Hat AND hoodie. Then my Dad made me wait in the house until the car was all warmed up. So I walked 50 feet in the frigid temps. He dropped me off at Tufts/NEMC. Another 10 foot walk. A woman in the elevator pointed out that my sneaker was untied. I told her not to worry, if I fell I would bounce right back up in my StayPuft marshmallow layers. I was fifteen minutes early....no credit to me, lol.

So Friday, my white blood cell count was .6. Normal range is approximately 4,500 to 11,000. Then there was the bone pain over the weekend and I made the comment that for this much pain......there better be a lot of white blood cells on Monday. Well, there were - 19,000.

This means - no more low bacteria diet. No more mask and gloves. And later this week......a pedicure!

Then it was down for the vascular catheter. Very pleasant people, very pleasant meds. "We're going to tunnel through you interior jugular vein...." and then all I heard was the ocean.

This is what's sticking out of my neck, my mother can't look at me.They wheeled me back to the Neeley Infusion Center where we pow-wow-ed with Kate, my nurse practitioner, Denise, my transplant co-ordinator, Dr. Miller and one of the infusion nurses.

Tomorrow is stem cell collection day. I look like Frankenstein.