Dear Friends and Family,
Day one of Nancy’s “ablative” chemotherapy is, in reality, day two of this hospitalization.
Nancy’s body is experiencing a new drug named Busulfan, an especially toxic poison. As the strongest chemotherapy drug currently available, it has a singular purpose: it must totally obliterate Nancy’s natural bone marrow, thereby ridding her body of any residual leukemia. (Consequently, I’m only going to work three days during these first two weeks.)
Today, as I headed to Salt Lake City after a full day of seeing patients at the office, I felt absolutely and completely sick to my stomach. By the time I would arrive, Nancy would be finishing her third dose of Busulfan. I didn’t know what to expect, and I’d read and heard about all the negative possibilities.
Would I find Nancy wrenching continuously?
Would her mouth be full of sores?
Or worse yet, would her liver, kidney, or heart be showing potential devastating side effects?
Leukemia is a psychologically rough cancer. Whenever a leukemia patient achieves a remission, the patient feels nearly normal. But feeling normal makes it harder to face an uncertain future, particularly when it can mean a return to truly difficult times.
When I saw Nancy yesterday, she was in the middle of her third remission. She was feeling good. She was feeling strong. Her fuzzy head is the only thing that reminds her that she has a life-threatening disease—that and the elevator ride to the top floor of the hospital that also reminded her that she was once again going to be on the “floor nearest to heaven.”
To my surprise as I entered “heaven,” joyfulness filled the room. Jayna was taking a movie of her “Moo.”
“Dad, come dance with Moo. She’s doing the transplant shuffle.”
For several minutes, Nancy and I “twisted and turned” just like Chubby Checkers. We kissed once and then we kissed again, Jayna recording it for posterity. It was magnificent and, at least for the moment, Nancy is doing fine.
Summary: We have survived the initial first two days in the hospital and Nancy’s first day of toxic medicines. We danced and Nancy has promised that if she makes it through our ordeal, she will reprise her ballerina role in our new original staging of the ballet, Transplantland.
All my love,
Winnie