New Blog Look and Update

To pass some time, I updated the look and feel of my Blog.  I have had the same layout for the past couple of years.  I went with blood red..  (get it, I have cancer of the blood...)

I just finished up day 10 of 12 of radiation.  No side effects aside from some dry skin on my scalp.  Not even sure if those are related to the radiation.  I finished up chemo 9 days ago.  My counts are pretty low now.  I have been running a slight fever the last couple of days, but nothing major. 

We have been in touch with the doctors in Boston as far as working on a timeline for transplant.  There are many tests that I need done before transplant.  Most of the tests can be done here at Maine Med so my doctor here has started to arrange for that to happen so as soon as I am ready, I can head to Boston.  Today I had chest xrays and a hemodynamic test.  I knew what the xray was all about, but no idea what the hemodynamic test was...

Everyday, when they wheel me to radiology, we pass a department named Nuclear Medicine.  I always wondered what they did there.  Well, for this test, instead of pushing me past the entrance, they took a left into Nuclear Medicine.

The technician explained that they were going extract blood from me (wicked excited about that), mix into my extracted blood a  radioactive isotope (wicked excited about that), stir it up "Really good." (as the technician said) and re inject the cocktail into my arm. (wicked excited about that).   It is also mixed with a pharmaceutical so that blood goes right to my heart.  Once this magic blood is inside me, they are able to take pictures of my heart and my blood flow and see how healthy it is.  The whole procedure took about an hour.  Not too bad.  Now I know one thing they do in Nuclear Medicine.

So next week, I will finish up radiation, take some additional tests in prep for transplant and then just wait for my counts to come up.

In my last post, I mentioned that I was watching basket weaving videos.  I thought you may be interested in seeing one of the videos.  They are kind of funny..

My ultimate goal is to be able to weave a fishing creel at some point similar to the ones pictured here.