Life is a Cosmic Joke

These are the words of my very wise grandmother.  We giggle about them often when life throws us curve balls.  Well let me explain to you how we got to laughing this day.  (I haven't posted in awhile, so I am picking up where I left off in my previous post.)

I left you, sleepless, but determined to get some more stem cells.  I had collected 0.7 million and I needed at least 2M for the transplant, and ideally 5M.  I had done energy work with Patty and Mary and taken a very expensive shot to help make this happen.  I was very hopeful.

So mom picks me up and we head to the hospital for another round with the machine.  My bones had stopped hurting (had only really hurt the first morning of my collection).  I get hooked up and cozy for the 4 hour event when in walks the doctor.  He looks at my chart and mentions something under his breath to the nurse, and then left.  So I start asking questions! I've learned it is not uncommon for Hodgkins patients to take 2-3 days to get all the stem cells we need because of all the chemo we've been through.  But I didn't realize that some fail to mobilize the first time around, and in fact this could be a prognostic factor in overall survival rate.

I got it out of the nurse that the doctor saw my progress and said that if I didn't get as much or more today then we will postpone the collection, give my body a break and resume again in 7 days where I would start the twice daily dose of shots again.  Which means at least 12-14 more days ...  my... face... went... pale.  The very thought of postponing this any further was utterly unsettling.    Mom had gone to the bathroom during my interrogation, and when she walked back to my chair she saw how I'd lost my color, my sparkle.  And so I told her what I learned...and I saw the pain jolt through her body too.  And we looked at each other, held each others hands and just kept telling ourselves that the path unfolds as it should...it has been this way so far, why stop now?

So I had one more hour of collection and then we went home.  As I was packing up my belongings, I honed in on a quote on the curtain around my chair..."be gentle with yourself"  aaaahhh, yes, be gentle. be gentle. be gentle. be gentle. be gentle. be gentle with yourself.

At home we had 3 hours to wait until we heard the count from the nurse.  It was a LONG three hours.  I hadn't slept the night before, but I couldn't settle enough to sleep.  I was feeling the yuck from all of these drugs. I had trouble concentrating on things and I was trying not to stress, but was a nervous little wreck, and then release, and the nervous wreck...the release...a cycle.

I got out my Mandala coloring book and colored, and that was about what my brain could handle at the moment.  Bright beautiful colors to calm the soul.  And then the mailman came and delivered a book a dear friend sent to me.  It was a comedy and mom I and read the first chapter aloud together.  I was laughing!! It was a very welcome distraction and perfect timing.

...and then back to waiting....it was an even longer wait than the day before, and in my past experience the longer I've had to wait for news the worse it was--usually because the doctors had to talk amongst themselves as what to do next....so you can see where my brain was going with each passing minute.

The phone finally rings, I pick up on the first ring, and immediately I can tell by the "Eve?"  that it good news.  Christine, the awesome nurse who I had for collection called to say that not only did I get at least 0.7M, I got 3.8 M totaling a whopping 4.5 MILLION stem cells!!!

WHAT a roller coaster ride that day turned out to be.  I went from deep worry to incredible ecstasy within the space of a couple of a couple of words exchanged.  GOOD news feels SO GOOD TO HEAR!!!  I immediately began crying, and laughing, and thanking her, and my bones, and it was a big mush of emotions---that had to get it together just enough to hear the final drug instructions from the nurse for the weekend.

So I hung up the phone, mom and I cheered, high-fived, and I totally broke down crying, a deep sobbing cry from the depths of my soul.  Carthasis.  I had to move that energy.  And I did, and mom so lovingly, tenderly held the space for me to do it.  It was a very sweet moment.  And then tears turned to laughter--a deep laughter, as we channeled in my dear grandmother hearing her say  "Life is a Cosmic Joke!!!" Here we were...if we had never known about the possibility of postponement we wouldn't have endured those several hours of torture waiting for the results.  But if I didn't know about that, I would never had felt as good as I felt at that moment.  I was high, happier than I had been in awhile.  So which would I choose if I had to do it again....?  Not sure if I could choose anyway....

4.5 million stemmies baby!! Means we can do the transplant as scheduled, I should recover faster since I have more cells to start with, and a good mobilization bodes well for a successful transplant.

Now...lets just get through this high-dose chemo.....