Admission and Everything After: June 5, 2022

Time is elastic here on the Blood & Marrow Transplant ward. I arrive at the admitting desk at 7:30am on June 2nd with my entourage of luggage, and soon after make my way upstairs to G110. In between unpacking, I am assessed by nursing, pharmacy and the medical team. My mom and I tour the floor. A PICC line - a type of central line that exits at my upper arm instead of my chest - is inserted at the bedside. I receive my first dose of conditioning chemotherapy, and then receive fluids to manage the low blood pressure that ensues. All this, and yet the hours pass slowly. It’s Day -7.

By Day -4 I am on my third day of etoposide and cytarabine. I begin to sense the rhythms of the ward, the dance among the hospital staff as they parade into my room at increasingly predictable intervals. Then there is the careful minuet of chemo drugs and drugs that manage their side effects: I first receive Compazine for nausea, which leaves me drowsy, before switching to Emend, which I hope will not. I figure out the times of day I will be unhooked from my IV pole, when I can shower. As I can better predict who and what is coming next, time passes more quickly.

Tomorrow will be my first of two days of rATG, a drug that targets a subset of my immune system called T lymphocytes. I’ve been warned that this will be a difficult day, and to anticipate fevers, chills and low blood pressure. I brought along a stuffed bunny upon which I can rain my wrath: the r in rATG stands for rabbit. I’m hoping it will help make the side effects more tolerable, or at the very least, make me smile.

In Judaism, we have just finished counting the Omer, enumerating the days from Passover until Shavuot, the Jewish holiday that celebrates receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. Here on the transplant ward, I am counting down the days until I receive my stem cell transplant. It is said that the act of counting helps gain spiritual readiness for the milestone to come.

I’m almost there, and I am ready.