Cycle 3, Day +4: Our Post-BMT Adventures

Here we are, four days post-transplant.

As we expected, getting out of the hospital seems to have lifted Steven's spirits. We have started ramping down the ativan, down from four doses a day to two, but we saw an improvement in how he was feeling even before we reduced his medication.

On Friday, day +1, our first day home, we ran into Jake, the 8-year old boy who is a week ahead of Steven on the same treatment. He was in the medicine room getting his IV medications and platelets at the same time Steven was there.

Just as his mother was telling me how glad she was he hadn't gotten a fever this cycle (he'd been hospitalized for fever during his previous two cycles), I could see the nurse sticking a thermometer in her son's mouth. I pointed to her son, she turned around and ran to the nurse, saying, "He doesn't have a fever-- we took it right before we came." She took the blanket off his legs and started fanning him, but the nurse sent her off to see the doctor, and they were admitted to the hospital.

There but for the grace of God goes Steven-- we may be admitted in a week also, but hopefully not.

Friday night I cooked ahi, the first time I've attempted seafood since we've been in Memphis. Being the good Catholics we are, we try to avoid meat on Friday, this usually means pasta, the seafood selection here isn't much like what we're used to in San Diego.

We usually sear it, so the pan was really hot when we put the fish in. One side done, we flipped it, and the fire alarm went off for the entire Target House.

I assumed that we'd caused it, despite having the exhause hood on high, and I called the front desk to say that there was no fire. They said everyone had to evacuate anyway.

I shepherded the kids downstairs while Doug turned off the rest of our dinner so we wouldn't end up having a real fire. All 50 families were standing out in front of the building as two fire trucks pulled up.

They inspected the building, Doug let them into our apartment, and they left, declaring the building safe. As we were returning to our room, I heard the receptionist at Target House saying they were going to have to ban microwave popcorn. I asked her why, she said the firemen had found a completely burned bag in another apartment on the same floor we're on, so it wasn't us after all, but I'd already told a bunch of the families it was us.

Sunday Sean announced he wanted to have a special day where he got to choose whatever fun activities he wanted to do, in honor of the last day of his spring break. It was unfortunately raining on Sunday, but he chose to go miniature golfing at a local indoor shopping mall. We packed up Steven, with his portable IV pump and HEPA mask and went to the mall and golfed, then decided to go bowling at another place in the same mall. After two rounds of bowling, we discovered that someone had stolen my purse, which we had stashed under the seat where we were sitting. I felt sick, my driver's license, our credit cards, my cell phone, my keys...

We reported the missing purse to one of their employees, who called their security. Two 10-year old boys had found my purse in the men's restroom and had turned it in. I checked it and as far as I can tell only my cash is missing, somewhere around $60, so we got off cheap.

Someone would have had to watch us carefully to be able to come in and take my purse right from under our noses like that. Thank God it was only the cash.

- Kathleen