Cycle 2, Day -2

When getting a bone marrow transplant, day 0 refers to the day the patient gets bone marrow or stem cells infused. The days previous to the stem cell infusion have negative numbers, the days after the transfusion have positive numbers.

For Steven, today was day -2. Today was basically a repeat of yesterday in terms of the drugs he got, although, like last time, he felt worse today than yesterday.

He's still doing better than last time, he only vomited once, but he spent most of the day feeling like he was about to throw up and, also like last time, the diarrhea started.

Since the last cycle, we've learned to handle things a little better in terms of telling the nurses to give him the antinausea meds before he starts feeling sick instead of waiting.

He's also drinking a little this time, maybe 8 oz. of apple juice a day, but last time he drank 8 oz. of water over a week's time, so it's an improvement. Not quite like the little boy we know that did this the week before, he was eating steak on day -2, but we'll take it anyway.

Tomorrow is a day "off" of chemo, no nasty drugs, but with him it seems like it takes a bit for the drugs of the previous days to reach their full effect, so he may or may not feel any better tomorrow.

If he's feeling sick tomorrow, we're going to have the behavioral medicine doctor that worked with him previously with regard to his terror of needles come to see him about controlling his nausea.

- Kathleen