Left turn in Hell.

I'm sitting here shivering uncontrollably with the house temp at 74F and I have a jacket on. Obviously the chills aren't caused by being cold.

Dexamethasone is the culprit. I'm supposed to take my "Batpills" tomorrow morning so I can turn back into a functioning human again. They always make me feel normal for about 48 hours. The other 5 days a week are spent in various stages of having my Batman suit stripped from me while being pummelled by 2x4's. You have no idea how depressing it is to go to bed at night feeling bad.....knowing that even after a night's rest you'll feel worse tomorrow. It doesn't help to know the pattern will continue for the next 5 days.

Of course, there's always hope. When Thursdays come around I can turn back into Batman and help save the world.

Except for tomorrow. The Dex is finished. No more. Not until I'm told I can. Blessing? Yes. Fun? No. Within a week, my system should return to just being plain old Andre. (That's a good thing for me. Dunno if it's a good thing for you.)

I also won't take any more Velcade (the nasty 'real chemo' stuff). I forgot to ask about the Pamidronate infusions, but they only happen once a month and I know I have none scheduled.

So, essentially, I'm completely off the old chemo plan. No Mo CheMo.

You didn't really believe that did you? Remember, the title is "Left turn in Hell."

What's really going to happen is that the doc is sending me upstairs to the 'harvest' center so they can do a complete eval of my current condition. That will involve:

1) Looking at today's numbers, which won't be back until tomorrow.
2) Generating some more numbers of their own.
3) Doing another bone marrow sample. (Bore a hole in your hip and suck marrow from it. Wasn't too fun the first time.)
4) Advising if we should go through with a harvest.
5) Putting in another central line (apheresis catheter) in my chest.
6) Dosing me up with some stuff that will make my bones hurt all the time while the marrow creates all kinds of stem cells. (Three days down before the pain even begins.)
7) Harvest of the stem cells IF this particular stuff works correctly in my body.
8) Change of harvest chemo to something truly nasty if the 'not so nasty' stuff doesn't work.
9) Harvest, collection, and separation of stem cells from the garbage.

And if all the numbers look good......... We'll move from there to transplant. That's a hard right turn into the central part of hell. It'll take me out of action for at least a month. It's "the bad time".

So, it's moving forward finally, but I sorta feel like soldier who's been dealing with IEDs all day on his way to a major battle in a nearby town. Things are bad. They're gonna change. They'll get worse. Eventually everything will be better.