Day -6: Good news, enough stem cells were harvested yesterday so I don’t have to harvest a second day but have a ‘resting day’ instead! I am quite happy because I didn’t feel like spending another day on that horrible dialysis machine. I moved from the 4th floor to the 2nd floor to a room closer to the transplant department. I am now in the corridor just in front of the transplant department, at room 231. The difference is especially for the visitors that they can still visit me (just like on the other floors) with blue covers around their shoes. As soon as I am behind the door of the transplant department, the visitors nee to wear blue shoe covers, but also a blue apron and a blue cap because of the strict hygiene rules.
Harvesting is over, so today my stiff neckline came out… but I did not expect that the new 2nd line (subclavia line) that is placed just below the collarbone, would be much more painful! It felt as if I was being impaled through a muscle. (Update: a few days later it will appear that this pain is not completely standard, but that I have a slowly collapsing lung). The reason for changing this line is basically comfort. The first neckline is rather stiff and is a lot less comfortable in terms of comfort and sleeping than the subclavia line. I could hardly move my neck and felt like a robot. With this 2nd line I no longer suffer from that and I have complete freedom of movement. Very pleasant to sleep with. By the way, some patients do not get this 2nd subclavia line but keep the neckline at the first location. Only the stiff version is then switched to the flexible one. The hard protruding tubes are then replaced with slack tubes (such as with the subclavia line) to make it more comfortable.
Anyways… my 2nd (subclavia) line is a bit bothering me. So I took some painkillers and let’s move on. I went to the hospital garden with Simon, but I also slept a lot and now I am slowly preparing for the next hurdle: starting tomorrow with the first day of 4 days of chemo.
By the way, nice blue color right? Some kind of disinfection they use when placing the new line and it is quite difficult to get rid of your skin. But I’m rocking the blue Avatar look, right!?
Oh yes, and Della and Amanda are a week ahead of our schedule, so today they had their transplant day followed by their ‘stem cell party’, which we attended. 🙂
Klik op de afbeeldingen om de galerij inclusief toelichtingen te openen:
Video of removing the neckline: