Transplant -5 (Saturday)

Today was a very nice day in Rochester. It was sunny with a high of about 55 degrees. There isn't a blade of green grass or a single bud on a single tree but everyone here thinks Spring is here. They are wearing shorts and riding their motorcycles. Brrrr.

Jackie had her second round of Fludarabine chemo this morning. This is a short treatment (30 minutes). By the time the nurses and doctors cover everything the whole thing takes about 1.5 hours.

The treatments are beginning to have their effect. She was tired a lot of the day and spent a lot of the time laying around. It still hasn't hit her full force. That should happen in about another week. Tomorrow she takes her last chemo treatment. We will do our daily visit to the transplant center on Monday but it is her "rest" day. On Tuesday she will take her radiation treatment and Wednesday will be -0 Transplant Day.

Tiff sent an email discussing how she read an article talking about how the living quarters for a transplant patient had to be sterilized. In our case, they have not mentioned the necessity of this. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought it should be done. So...I took a trip down to the grocery store and home improvement store. I purchased a garden sprayer, several gallons of alcohol, and various and sundry other sterilizing chemicals. I'm in the process of mixing up a noxious brew that sure to kill everything that creeps, crawls, lives, or breathes on the carpets, rugs, and countertops of this apartment. I intend to treat everything tomorrow morning while Jackie is walking the 2 blocks to the clinic. I'll catch up to her along the way. I'm thinking maybe I should get some Petri dishes and culture whatever is living with us. In case my home brew doesn't kill of everything I might stuff some wet towels under the doors and fumigate with some chlorine gas made from pool supply chemicals. Anything living through this would be finished with a follow up fumigation of phosgene gas.

Of course I'm kidding about the gas:)

I am going to spray with a solution of alcohol and water to try and kill off anything the carpet and drapes might be harboring, however. Now if I could just figure out what concentration of water to alcohol I need to keep the entire affair from becoming explosive..... :)

Bruce and Jackie
From Rochester, MN
PS. It is about 10:45 PM as I write this and Jackie is having some nausea for the first time.