Day +23 - Feeling great!

Today I woke up feeling great. It's probably because I slept well, which hasn't happened in a while. A couple of the medications can cause trouble sleeping, and since I'm still getting up about 3 or 4 times a night to hit the restroom it's hard to get back to sleep each time. But even with getting up last night as well, I fell back into a deep sleep and lumbered along until 8 am. It felt great. It's also been 23 days since the transplant, and 23 happens to be a favorite number of mine, so go figure. Part of me is a little scared that things are going too well, but I've always had a cautious outlook.

The picture above was taken by my friend, Simon, on a walk we did around Seward Park yesterday. You can call me chrome-dome now :) I was pretty lathered up in sunblock, but luckily most of the walk was done out of direct sunlight, so I got to uncover a bit. On the way back he offered to let me drive his Porsche, and we'd had such a fun walk on a beautiful day that it was hard to say no, even though it's his baby :) It was a fun drive back along the twisty Lake Washington Boulevard.

Before the walk with Simon, I did my do-over blood draw at the SCCA since I had screwed up the test the day before by taking one of the medications at the wrong time. My team scheduler called to make sure I stopped by for a chest X-ray before going home, and I was home and back from the SCCA in 30 minutes. That's awesome. Having everything in one building and a highly coordinated staff sure makes a huge difference. Troy, the team scheduler, keeps me up to date on my schedule anytime it changes, and the rest of the staff keeps me informed regularly about what's going on. All of them even have email addresses, and they respond quickly! These guys are really spot-on.

My breakfast burrito yesterday morning reminded me that I still need to be careful with my delicate mouth. The whole mouth is slowly re-growing its lining, and a little piece of egg in my semi-hot burrito opened the tiniest blister on the roof of my mouth. It's gone now, but, argh!

So anyway, today I woke up feeling great. I drove Johanna to her chiropractor appointment, and met her chiropractor, who is also a fireman and is running up 69 flights of stairs on my behalf in the Firefighter Stairclimb at Columbia Tower, a worldwide competition among firefighters to raise money for the Lymphoma & Leukemia Society. My friend, Nic, the ultra-marathoner, runs this same climb every year, but these 1,500 fireman run up all those flights in full firefighting gear. Holy moly!

After the chiropractor, we stopped at Moka's for coffee and an egg breakfast sandwich (yum), then I headed back home to tidy up the place in preparation for our housecleaners. I finished a funny book called Couch that my brother-in-law gave me, and headed down to the Audi dealer to fix a windshield crack. The receptionist: "We've got pastries and donuts while you wait." Me: "Thanks." (I can't eat food that's in the open) "Do you have wifi?" Receptionist: "Yes!" Heaven :) They couldn't fix the dent since it was too low on the windshield, but I got a free car wash/vacuum out of it and a relaxing time playing on the MacBook enjoying the change of scenery. Then it was lunch with a friend, where I had pizza for the first time in a month, and it tasted pretty good. Not perfect tasting yet, but agreeable. I met with my boss to chat about stuff over my 2nd coffee of the day (yay coffee tastes ok!), and then picked up Johanna from work, hooked up my portable IV pump to get my daily infusion of magnesium, and we headed over to my parent's apartment where my mom had a wonderful shrimp creole ready and waiting. My sister and her husband were there, and we hung out in front of the fire afterwards chatting and digesting. After getting home, Johanna settled in to watch the weird Grey's Anatomy / Private Practice crossover thing and I finished and filed our taxes. Then it was time to take a shower and get ready for bed. Whew!

Tomorrow I have another day of SCCA appointments, including a blood draw, a visit to the snot guy, and another transfusion of those magic Mesenchymal stem cells. Johanna hates these transfusions because of the fishy smell that lingers on me all day as a result of the preservatives in the IV bag. I don't mind since I get a nice Benadryl nap out of it. I'll also be meeting with the attending physician to go over any new issues. Wish me luck!


Steve with a big smile after driving Simon's fast, shiny Porsche!