Category: Uncategorized
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Admittance Day
Saturday, July 2nd had finally arrived. We drove to The Pavilion at UPenn, which is a brand new part of the Abrams Cancer Center, having just opened in November 2021. George was admitted to the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit on the 14th floor. His room is a nice size and has sweeping views over the…
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What’s Your Line? (Central & PICC)
Friday, July 1, George went in to the hospital and had his Hickman catheter, or central line and his peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC line) placed. What are those things? I’m glad you asked. A Hickman catheter, or central line, is a soft, small hollow tube that is placed into a vein in the chest…
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Meeting With Radiologist
Well, we are three days out from hospital admittance and today, we met with the radiologist. As I previously wrote, George will enter the hospital on Saturday, July 2nd. On Sunday he will start chemotherapy for two days, then on Tuesday he will undergo total body irradiation (TBI) for three days, twice a day. On…
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Preparing for Hospital Admission
Hard to believe, but George will be admitted to the hospital a week from yesterday for his allogenic stem cell transplant. We have been moving towards this day since January, it seems, and now it is upon us. It is both exciting and terrifying, as I explained in the previous post. A couple of weeks…
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Here We Go….
Yesterday afternoon, we got the phone call we have been waiting for. We were informed that George has a bone marrow transplant hospital admission date of Saturday, July 2nd. The next day, he will start on his 2 day regiment of high intensity chemo followed by 3 days of total body radiation (twice daily). Then…
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Playing the Waiting Game
It’s been a while since I have written anything. That’s because I feel like we have just been waiting for the show to get on the road and for George to be admitted for his bone marrow transplant. But in reality, a lot has been happening these past couple of weeks. First, George received the…
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The Illusion of Normalcy
I recently published a post called The Joy of Normalcy, where I extolled the pleasure and comfort of being able to live a pretty normal life, despite George’s diagnosis. He basically had no debilitating side effects from his chemo treatments, like nausea or loss of appetite. He did get an infection, but that was treated…
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The joy of normalcy
In a previous post, I wrote that George had finished up his round of chemo injections and we were happy that we didn’t have to drive the 50 minutes to Camden every day anymore. Then I remembered that he would have to have blood drawn regularly so, maybe we were kidding ourselves. Well, the good…
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A New Week Begins
Today is Monday and last Friday, George finished up his injections of Vidaza. He is still taking the Venclexta pills for another week, though. We are both glad we won’t have to drive to Camden every day anymore….but are we fooling ourselves? Today, George has a follow up appointment with Dr. Ghimire and then as…
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Bone Marrow Biopsy #3
Yesterday, March 28 we drove out to UPenn in Philadelphia for George’s scheduled bone marrow biopsy. He has had two previous biopsies at Cooper hospital, but said this experience was different. At Cooper, he was hospitalized when he had them so of course it was different in that respect. This time his biopsy was done…
Diagnosis: Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). A Journey 