Might be packing my bags for the hospital

Well, tomorrow morning I may be packing my bags for the hospital. The plan is to start me on induction therapy, which is a high-dose chemotherapy used to put MDS and leukemia into remission. The actual treatments will last 7 to 10 days and supposedly require hospitalization for up to a month. Ugh. This is because most of the normal marrow cells as well as the cancer cells will get destroyed by the treatment so there will be constant monitoring happening and the likelihood of more transfusions. Not all of the cancer cells get wiped out, so the disease will usually return in several months. But the goal of the induction therapy is to put the disease into remission as much as possible before the transplant, which we're guessing will happen in about 10 weeks.

Oh, and the bone marrow biopsy on Monday went fine. I was a little nauseous again after it was over so Shawn and I spent most of the day chilling out. But during the biopsy I was happily sedated, and Dr. Goldberg sang more songs! He sang "With a little help from my friends" by the Beatles and "Truckin'" by the Grateful Dead. I don't know if he sings to help relax his patients, or if he sings to make himself more relaxed, or if he sings because he is generally having a good time sticking a big needle in my ass. I think the latter. But it definitely makes the whole thing a lot more entertaining :)

Oh, and my friend Josh at work wants me to call it a "camaro transplant" instead of "marrow transplant". I like the sound of "bitchin' camaro transplant" even more :)