D-5

A good night of sleep, maybe the best I've had here. The only disruptions were the midnight and 4 a.m. vitals checks.

Today, the doctors are taking several measures to head off a repeat of yesterday's (relatively mild) side effects. I will receive ahead of time some of the medications I got yesterday to relieve the hives and chest tightness, and I will receive the Campath over eight hours instead of four.

My brown tongue is less brown -- there is less brown overall, and some of the remaining brown is more coffee-colored than chocolate-colored.

A visit from the attending around midday, who clears up some minor misunderstandings I had. The heart sonogram I had on Friday was the echocardiogram, while the picture I have of my chest covered in leads was an EKG. The results of both are, in her words, "boring." Which means "good."

The other misunderstanding I had was about the number of stem cells collected. All along, I have been hearing numbers like 3 million (ideal + backup) cells, 2 million (ideal), 1.7 million (what they actually collected). I was thinking that was the number of cells collected, which seems like a lot. But cells are really small, and those numbers describe many more cells than I thought, because they refer to the number of cells per kilogram of my weight.

I could raise the number of cells we have per kilogram by losing a lot of weight over the next five days, but I'm sure that's a bad idea.

Halfway through the eight-hour drip, still no side effects. Good lunch, completely from my personal provisions: lentil soup, almond butter on ak-mak crackers, dried peaches, a little chocolate, water.

A visit from Dave and Allison, once across-the-street neighbors so close we joked that we lived in one house with a road running through it. They moved to Oswego years ago, but we have stayed in touch and our oldest sons are still good friends. They brought some of David's famous sweet potato bread and some McIntosh apples, and fresh-squeezed orange juice from the Au Bon Pail downstairs. (Thanks, Dave and Allison!)

Seven hours into the drip, still no side effects.

Seven and half hours in -- spoke too soon. Mild hives on the lower arms. Getting some Benadryl and steroids.

Dinner off the menu -- no cooking tonight. Chicken, stuffing, corn, grapes, and broccoli, which was erroneously banned but is allowed by a doctor's note. I went over this with the call-taker. She said it was fine. Dinner arrived later than the usual 45 minutes, with an apology and an explanation. They decided they had to make a call about the broccoli, to make sure, and it took a little while to clear up their confusion. I thanked her for her caution, and she left. I lifted the cover -- no broccoli! I called Food Service, and they said they would send it right up. 45 minutes later, after I was done with dinner, the broccoli showed up. "Too late. But you can take my tray." I also had some of the sweet potato bread, warmed in the microwave. The nurse who warmed it was jealous.

Getting ready to go to sleep. Pretty restful day.