Home sweet home

Home sweet home. We have made ourselves a pretty comfortable nest here. We got home yesterday around 7pm, but dang if Mikey hadn't already left for LA with his friends, taking the Surfliner down to see Wicked the Musical (the book by Maguire was very cool). They are staying with one of the kid's aunts, and will come home tomorrow.

Since we had no idea where Mikey was, and John didn't know (!?), Dana spent the night wringing her hands and actually had a worse night's sleep than I did. Social mores kept her from calling one of the other kids' moms to see where Mike was, so when I leapt out of the bed with a quads cramp at 4 in the morning and then peed, she woke freaky and dark and shouted 'Is Mike here?' and I yelled 'It's just me and I am peeing!' We went back to sleep.

Mom and children from The Gates of Hell

Tough night, and tough day yesterday, you have to be tough. I wanted the day that we had, with the last of chemo for induction phase, a bone marrow biopsy, first day in 3 weeks with no prednisone (no taper, cold turkey), and a drive home, and I got it. I woke early Thursday in my new shared room, and I grabbed the laptop and a coffee and headed for the waiting room where I wouldn't disturb Brian. I started blogging and wasting time until breakfast. After breakfast, the pharmacist doctor from our team came by, and that is when I found out I was going cold turkey off the prednisone.

She said I could expect to crash sometime in the day, and just feel rundown and tired through Friday or Saturday. She wanted to know if I wanted her to say anything to the attending doctor towards my early Thursday release, but I told her that I had already lobbied it and should probably back off. My guess is the decision had been made when my blood work showed good, which I assumed it had. I asked the pharm doc to add some magic juice to my chemo, some vincristine and some PEG-Asparaginase.

I got my nurse to get going on the chemo as soon as it was cooked up. Vincristine is a 2mg IV push, takes 2 minutes. PEG is 2 intramuscular shots that I like in the latissimus. This was the same as day 5's shots, and again the nurse warned me that this shot really hurt, hold on, and again I had to tell them compared to the dentist's roof-of-mouth shot, this was nothing. And again, I was right, it hurts more with a dull ache for the next day than the initial shot.

People do not know how to take pain like shots and so they get freaked in anticipation, but it is easy. I either get very interested and watch intently, and record all sensory intake like a scientist, or I go away someplace deep that takes some concentration, some place I know well and can conjure in my mind for that moment.

My bone marrow biopsy was scheduled for about 1pm, so of course right after the doc came by to see we were going to get going on it in a few minutes when he found th technician he needed, I had to go find a bathroom. I couldn't go in the room's bathroom with Brian's wife sitiing ten feet away. I went out to a visitor bathroom and had a high anxiety gas attack, trying not to miss the doc's return and possible reschedule and loss of early freedom, but I had to weigh the possibility of crapping myself when the doc started pushing on my bones to get that marrow coring he needs.

It all worked out. One of the interns was with the doc, and the technician that looks at the aspirate and the coring and makes sure they are good samples. We gathered in my room. Brian and his wife left in horror - he had said he screamed and cried like a baby when he got BMBs. He had a lot of nerve. The docs proceeded, starting by feeling around for the spot on the iliac crest they go in.

They mark the spot with an 'X'; I am getting tattoos on those spots to direct future docs. I asked the intern if this was his first BMB, and he agreed he was a virgin. Cool. They start by injecting lidocaine painkiller in the spot, and then more and deeper, pushing and injecting, then pushing and injecting. It is not a sharp but rather a deep pain, one that should produce a nice groan. This is the most painful part of the procedure.

I realized I had spent too much time watching surfers from the parking lot at the Rock, as opposed to actually surfing myself, when my perspective was misaligned. I was supposed to be paddling out at the outlet next to Morro Rock, but I was seeing it from the parking lot. I had to fix this mental misfire, and reoriented, and now I was on my board and the current was taking me out to the lineup. The waves were nice, not too big, and I needed one to ride the pain waves they were going to be rippling through me. They got the lidocaine in deep and I caught a nice left, and as he really shoved the last of it in I accelerated on the wave, ripping it up and down, surfing much better than I really do. At least I had the visuals fixed.

We waited for the lidocaine to settle in and then went to work. This part doesn't really hurt until the last. They are going to get 2 things; first some aspirate (juicy), and then they go deeper and get a coring, a little slice of bone marrow. The intern pushes the aspirate needle, and since he is being coached by the head doc, I hear all the instruction, and they want me to keep communicating what I am feeling, which is pressure but not pain. Once they anchor that needle on the spot they want the intern gives it a good shove, and you can feel it pop through the bone into the marrow.

He gets his aspirate, pulls it out, the technician says it looks great, and we move on. This part is much trickier as they have to get the coring into the needle and then get it to break off without losing any. The intern goes back into the hole and really starts pushing. A couple more pops through bone, and the trick is to not get 'China Syndrome', where you've gone too far and through. Just when it starts to hurt pretty deep, he is far enough. Now he has to twist the needle around in a circle twenty times, then wiggle it back and forth to break it, and then yank it out. He tells me get ready, so I paddle out, and he pops it as I go left again. Another good wave, shoulder high and ripping down the line.

However, tragedy, the coring broke. The intern asks if we are still friends, and I tell him I love him, do me again daddyo. So he goes in close by, which is why we used a load of lidocaine in the first place. This time he is a little more confident and gets what he needs. I am of course urging him - when this is done, we are gone. They clean up the blood and bone that flew around, bandage me up, get my discharge papers after I lie for 1/2 hour, and we boogaloo, 3pm, and just miss traffic.

Dana drives and when we switch in Salinas, the lidocaine is wearing off, the prednisone is wearing off, and suddenly I feel like I ran a marathon. Everything hurts. By the time we get home I am about 75 years old, and by bedtime I am 90. I wake up repeatedly during the night with calf, feet and hamstring cramps, and generally drive Dana even wackier than she already is over Mike. Dana's sisters have prepared for my return with a 'Welcome Home' poster, starring me.

We noticed these pimples on Boo-Qwilla's ass. And here are two disco ducks on tour.

It is now Friday night, and I am still out of gas, but recovering. Tomorrow the Team-in-Training training session is 8 miles; I may just cheer them on, I may walk what I can, we'll see how I feel tomorrow.