Day two

Dear Friends,
I was asked if I would blog about my experience and, well, frankly, I've got nothing better to do right now. I am spending 4-10 hours sitting in a chair or bed for the next two weeks, preparing my immune system for the transplant or doing dialysis. Everyone at UVa hospital seems nice and, perhaps more importantly, competent.

On MWF, I am doing plasmapheresis in the morning. This consists of pulling out blood (sorry Aarnes) and spinning it down in a continuous process to remove plasma. The plasma is apparently where the antibodies reside. Then they give me my blood back with some albumin. This takes a little over two hours. Then in the afternoon, they give me intravenous immunoglobulin to trick my body into not making more antibodies. The latter procedure made me sick to my stomach on the first day and I had to have a drug for that.

On TTS, I have my regular dialysis. Only Sundays off. All of this will continue up to the 25th when the transplant is scheduled. Hopefully, noting will go wrong. Like catching something.

The good news is that during these next two weeks, I don't have to be quarantined, which is nice. Mom and I are staying in an extended stay hotel in a slightly sketchy neighborhood. It is within easy walking distance of grocery shopping, which is good, but they have a permanent armed guard, which is definitely not Blacksburg. More like Oakland, so Mom is right at home.

I really appreciate all of your thoughts and prayers. It occurs to me that I'm going to miss the special attention when this is all over. It could drive a person to develop Munchausen's. But seriously, it feels quite nice to be so loved and cared for. It makes it easier to tolerate the inconvenience.