A Good First Day

I have a lot to comment on over the past two weeks, but first i must let everyone know how i'm doing (I'll probably be playing catch up for a couple of weeks...). Today I began treatment and it was a full day, but overall not nearly as difficult as i anticipated.

The day began by checking into UW Hospital and finding my hospital room. I then had a central line placed, an catheter-like IV that begins on my bicep, runs up a vein to just outside my heart. This will allow the doctors and nurses to administer Chemo and take blood samples without continually poking me or damaging a vein. While I expected this procedure to be painful, it was far from it -- really, I hardly felt a thing.

I then had an echocardiogram test and am happy to report that my heart seems to be working as it's supposed to.

From here, my day got a bit more interesting as the doctors sedated me to perform a bone marrow biopsy, a rather painful procedure where a needle is placed through your hipbone (from your back) to suck out some bone marrow. I cannot remember the procedure, but can vaguely recall calling some friends as the sedation wore off. These were undoubtedly some of the funniest calls people have ever recieved. At one point while trying to call my friend Jesse, I forgot what I was doing. Our conversation started something like this:

Jesse: Hello
Sam: Who the hell is this?
Jesse: What? Who is this?...

You can imagine the confusion for a few minutes (I know this only because I called Jesse back this evening to find out what I had said...

Finally, this evening I recieved a lumbar puncture (known alliases include "spinal tap" or "LP"). This was a suprisingly easy procedure where they took a bit of my spinal fluid out and replaced it with some chemo. All went well, only I seem to have a bit of a headache now, likely resulting from a lack of spinal fluid.

All in all a pretty full day, however I feel suprisingly well. Tomorrow I'm slated to get blasted with chemo, and i look forward to killing some cancer cells.

Thanks for all of the calls, emails, and letters. Your support is really helping me through this. I apologize that I havn't responded to all of them, but its a challenge keeping up.

Till next time and take care,

Sam