BEAM me up, Scotty! Wait, or was it down?

I´ve spent my valuable freetime not only with fun things but also with visiting several doctors. The dentist, cardiologist, gynecologist and ENT doctor all checked me from top to bottom (I almost died on the ergometer!). So now there are four letters lying around on my desk saying that my body´s fit and able enough to take on a stem cell transplantation (it´s so funny how doctors love their letters. I sometimes feel like a postman carrying paper from doc to doc. That´s sooo like last century, ever heard of something called "e-mail"?). I guess now it´s time to talk and think about the next (and hopefully LAST) step in my treatment plan.

Oh well. Have a lollipop.

Here´a quick recap of what we already did:

• Four times CHOEP to get rid of most of the cancer- check!
• Restaging to "something like remission"- hehe check.
• DHAP and Neulasta to stimulate stem cell production- blehh yes, check, thank heavens.
• Stem cell harvest- "like a queen" according to my doc. So, royally check!
• Getting physical check-up- check.

So the last flight of stairs will take me to BEAM, an even higher dosed chemo than DHAP. It will destroy my stem cells completely, leaving me behind without an immune system, blood coagulation or oxygen transport in the blood. This state is bearable for the body for approximately five days before it dies. Because we don´t want me to die (duhhh!), I get my own harvested stem cells transplanted back after two days. It´s like a reboot of my system- first we format my hard drive only to then install a new OS which shouldn´t have the same problems and bugs as the old one. 

Without an immune system I´m very prone to any kind of infection which means I have to spend the time of the treatment in full isolation on Nazi station. If I´m lucky and don´t catch anything I can probably leave the hospital after 3-4 weeks. But the duration of my stay can easily double if anything goes wrong (and there´s a lot of stuff that could go wrong...).

I don´t know yet any more details what to expect from BEAM only that I will be very, very tired. And since two of the four meds have already been part of my first two chemos (E- "Etoposide" from CHOEP and A- "Ara-C" resp. Cytarabine from DHAP) I kinda know what I can expect from them. Which doesn´t make it any better cause they both seriously suuuuucked. ;)

That almost makes you miss CHOEP doesn´t it? ;)

I have several appointments at the clinic the next days where they do the final checks before we can start chemo (another CT, ultrasound, lung function test, one thousand blood tests at least ;)). And I will also have talks with my docs and the nurses where they explain to me in great detail what it means to be in isolation so I can prepare better. Cause there are even more and stricter rules in isolation than on normal Nazi station. And I heard the chief nurse is even more evil.

Wahhhh! Chief nurse Adi

P.S.: I just read this about the side effects of Etoposide on Wikipedia and I really wanted to share it with you cause it made me laugh so hard- "Less common side effects: Acute myeloid leukemia (which ironically can be treated with etoposide itself)". That looks like a vicious circle if I ever saw one! ;)