Rush away rash

I've been off the Thalidomide for 6 days. The rash started to go away after the first day and now seems to be in the healing stages. Dry skin in patches and lots of flakiness around the spots.

I had a blood draw today and my 'red line' isn't drawing correctly again. I failed to document that I had a tPA done a couple of weeks ago. tPA stands for Tissue Plasminogen Activator. Basically it's a very short-lived blood clot eliminator. Get an infusion, go away for two hours, come back to see if the 'Drano' worked. Well, it did but we're now back to a slow/difficult line. Just to help you understand, a Hickman central line is a two headed beast with one red colored outlet and one blue colored outlet. The whole Hickman is an outwardly single tube but it is internally two seperate tubes. It's threaded thru and under the skin on my chest, upward to my Jugular vein, then down inside the Jugular to my heart. It allows simple infusions and blood sampling/extraction. Generally the red line is for blood extraction and the blue line is for drug infusion. I've had this thing since October 24, 2007. Seven months with a hose hanging out of my chest. A hose that turns a simple shower into an hour-long event. Undress it, protect it, shower, sterilize it, dress it again, clear each line with saline and heparin, wear a t-shirt to help it stay in place. Did I mention the necklace I have to wear to secure the ends of the Hickman? The one that helps it from being accidentally pulled from my chest? Strain relief for the Jugular?

I'm scheduled to see Dr. B. on Wednesday afternoon. We'll discuss the next transplant and figure out what new maintenance plan I'll be going on.

Friday morning Ed and I will be going to Banff. Then I'm off on a long motorcycle ride on Monday, June 2nd. I'll be back home on the 17th.

Don't worry if there's not a lot of news in this blog. There'll probably be much more news at http://wandering-tourist.blogspot.com

More MM news as it happens.