Life as a pre-transplant patient Day minus 19

This will be today's final post I think, since I'll be back in S.F. tonight-
Alrighty....
Up at 6am this morning, coffee and off to Hutch for an I.V. drip of Vancomyocin.
It's a heavy hitter antibiotic for heavy hitter's like Margie.

We still don't know what the origin of the infection is, although the team has told Margie that they will let her know after a little more time in the petri dish. (the germs, not Margie)
She has had the Hickman Cath for about 10 months, so the likely hood of this happening eventually is present. Margie practices excellent infection control so it would be important to find this out now so that if any behaivor can be modified, it will. Will keep you posted on any infection updates.

The 2 1/2 hours at Hutch this morning were very pleasant. Got to have some last visiting with mom, dad and Cathy and then Cathy, Eleanor and I got a tour and a excellent lesson in the area of the unit where Cathy will be getting her blood
taken and it's seperated, cleaned, sorted and counted. Mom will get 5 million stem cells per kilo of weight, which means she'll be transplanted with about 30 million
stem cells by the end of the transplant. As I mentioned, May 10 is the tentative DAY ZERO.
Mom, Dad and Cathy then got a lesson in administering her antibiotic themselves, as she has to have an i.v. two times a day and it takes a bit over 2 hours each time.
Unfortunately when we went to pick up the i.v. pump and the drugs and all the paraphanelia, we couldn't get it due to it being sunday, and there were insurance questions that can't be answered till monday. So, tonight Mom and Dad go back to university hospital and get another 2 hour drip.

Tomorrow will start early at 7am at Hutch with a blood draw, then at 8 will be a procedure called a Muga which means that they'll inject dye into her cath line that goes to hear heart and the information that they see will be added to the bigger equation of the transplant.9:30 is her antibiotic i.v. drip, After that: 11:00 am, a meeting with a social worker, 1 pm,nutritionist,2pm: Dentist, Hygenist and then at3pm, meeting with the blue team RN.

Did I say that this week would be less taxing? I'll take that back.


Cathy here, Its been great having Elenor and Kathleen here needless to say hardly any sleep. Its amazing no matter what kind of setting you are in when your with Elenor theirs always laughter.

Margie says she can feel all your prayers each and every one. If you are reading this I feel you are communicating with me and I know you are out there. We have had alot of fun and laughter the last two days, We knew we were gonna have fun but this surpassed all our expectations. We even have some new funny stories about the now famous cherry pie. We are so thankful for our family and support, see first blog from Margie. Its a bright sunny day Love Margie.