Day -3 Let the Party Begin!

Carey and I checked into the LDS Hosptial Bone Marrow Transplant unit this morning bright and early at 8:30 am - no small feat when you toss in the task of getting two small boys ready and dropped off at the babysitter. We weren't too sure about the schedule for today, but we had a vague recollection that the chemo would be administered around 4 pm. Once we checked in and were introduced to our nurse we learned that the first item on the schedule was getting hooked up to IV fluids. The purpose of these fluids was to prepare my body for the process of eliminating the chemo from my system quickly and efficiently with the aid of 'Lasix' (which sounds a lot like Lasik only no lasers and more toilets.) I can firmly attest to the efficacy of the combination of liters of water (laced with "Sodium Chloride 0.9% w/v", whatever that is) and Lasix - this combo is the #1 reason the chemo was flushed out of my system so quickly.

Since getting my first dose of melphalan has been accomplished, the MelphaLAN Party has officially started! I don't know what a Melpha is but I'm ready for the LAN Party!

For fun I thought it would be cool if I tracked my pseudo-fitness while I'm here - this will consist of tracking information about my walking speed and heart rate. I have footpod and heart rate sensors which I will use to record some of my walks around the 8th floor here in the BMT. The loop is short and not really safe for speed-walking so the numbers won't be too interesting, I mostly want to see if the chemo affects even a simple walk. This won't be very scientific, but I'll probably try to post some results as they accumulate. I took my first walk tonight just to see if my sensors would work and logged 0.63 miles in about 20 minutes with a moving average of about 2.11 mph and an average heart rate of 103 bpm.