Zero day minus one

 

Well as you can see from the daily diary which I am now keeping, today is not D-Day or V-Day or Zero-Day. In fact, even though it is the longest day I am likely to spend in the chemo unit, it is only Zero-Day minus One. 

That's because the real Zero Day, from which everything else is calculated, is tomorrow when they actually put my stem cells back into me. And then those little Zeligs can start to put themselves into the roles of all the various cells in my marrow which will have been kicked up the arse by what they did today on Zero-Day minus One. 

In fact, it being midwinter, I was in the unit before sunrise and stayed till long after sundown, about nine hours of being hooked up to various drips through the day. Here I am at the end of the day:

But because they put the PICC line in yesterday, it required no more needles and cannulas. It was in fact like recharging an electric car. Just plug me in and watch it go. 

So in order of sequence I had:

• A big bag of about one litre of saline and Potassium, which I think is designed to keep me well hydrated and to protect my kidneys and liver from the poison that follows
• A small bag of Melphalan, looking all innocent in its clear little bag, but we all know it is a Begbie-like little shortarse, who is going to cause chaos when he passes through the swing doors of my Vena Cava (gosh that suddenly sounds like a Mexican bar to me). 
• A small bag of another drug designed to make me pee, because they are feeding so much liquid into me today that it is a good idea. It worked, very quickly. 
• Finally, a huge bag of more saline, to dilute and flush and protect while the Melphalan is starting things indoors. This bag took three hours to go through.

They also gave me an ice-lolly while the Melphalan was going through, which was jolly nice of them but it took one of my lovely doctor-Neices to explain how it works. The Melphalan seeks out fast-reproducing cells. Cancer is top of the most wanted list, but in an identity parade they sometimes pick the wrong guy, so the fast reproducing hair follicles, mouth lining and gut lining are often duffed up along with the baddy. But if you cool down the target areas, they will attract less Melphalan. So the lolly will have helped my tongue to dodge the flying bullets of Elliot 'Melphalan' Ness. 

And now, as you see, I have to try to record everything that passes into my body and out of it, along with any side-effects that I notice. I have been reliably informed by a stem-cell-transplant recipient next to me that having an en-suite room is a really good idea right now, because of the effects of the drugs. He also backed up my contention that the least pleasant part of the treatment is the bone-marrow biopsy.

I am feeling totally fine now, just wondering if the chilli con carne I have just eaten for dinner may have not been a completely good idea, but now I have started on this process, I can only use the lines from Macbeth as he crossed his personal Rubicon:

I am in blood stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,

Returning were as tedious as go o’er.

And on that note, I may start to watch the entire box set of Breaking Bad, which a friend has lent me.