My counts hit zero today, which was to be expected. I'm hanging in, a little tired, but still walking in circles. I'm a little over my daily goal of 10,000 steps for the day.

Susan and I were having an interesting discussion about reprocessing old raw files, finding photos that we had overlooked or simply forgot about, and then bringing them to life the other day. Today's photos are an interesting case in point. These photos are from a roll of B&W film given to me awhile back, but I couldn't process it myself. It's a B&W film designed for C-41 color negative processing. I shot the film, had it processed, the negs scanned to a CD, copied the images to my computer, and forgot about them.  I came across them this afternoon and noticed they had an interesting quality with the grainy, slightly muddy grays, and areas of contrasty blacks and whites punching through.

Spunk

There is nothing intended to be symbolic about today's photos — they are from the pre-dawn laser light show at the Balloon Fiesta.  Everything is pretty much the same as it ever was. My counts are really low, but I'm hanging in there. I'm at 12,000 steps again, which seems to be the standard for walking in circles.

Today starts day one for counting days to recovery. The stem cell re-infusion was day zero they told me.  I have had no problems today, which was to be expected since my immune system is hanging in there by a thread; but the rest of the week, I'll go to zero on all counts and that's were problems can arise. We are trying to minimize problems as much as possible, working toward a quick, and uneventful recovery.  I have 12,000 steps today so far.

The stem cell re-infusion went well with no adverse side effects so far. The actual re-infusion took about an hour, but with the time administering pre-meds before the re-infusion, and the time I took recovering from pre-meds after the re-infusion, I really couldn't do much for about 7 hours.  Therefore, I only got in 6500 steps today.

Day seven has been a day off from treatment more than a day of rest, as I have over 16,000 steps so far today. Lots of walking in circles and thinking.

We have had the stem cell re-infusion process explained by several different professionals now, and while the fog is starting to clear, there remains much mystery and risk involved with a stem cell transplant.  It's like my bones are laid bare, dead to the world, to be collected and re-animated by the stem cells.

Mechanical building is prominent

I moved to the positive air-flow room (Positive ISO Only) in the afternoon after I completed my last Chemo, which gave me a new view. The stem cell re-infusion will take place in this room on Monday, because I have to wait at least 24 hours after the last treatment so I can get all the active chemo flushed out of my system. Now that the last chemo is completed, all my bone marrow will be killed, and now I have no choice but to have the stem cells re-infused, wait for them to take hold and rebuild my immune system.

Wider view looking south.

Since I still have lots of photos from the Balloon Fiesta, I decided I put of a few that seem to go with my situation — a bit perilous.  

I am racking up the steps wandering around the corridors. Yesterday I got 11,800 steps, and today I'm at 12,650, plus I'm in second place in the weekly challenge at 45,300 steps, almost 15,000 steps ahead of 3rd place. Tomorrow I have my last chemo treatment, which is the really nasty stuff that kills the bone marrow. Then Sunday is a rest day, and Monday I will get the stem cell transplant that starts a whole new cycle.

Spunk is a fitting image for today since he is a Master Wiz himself.  One of the peculiar things they have me do while I'm in the hospital is to pee in a bottle so they can record the output to see that I am drinking enough fluids and not getting dehydrated.  There are no wasted days or wasted nights as I fill the jug many times and day and night, so that the techs and nurses have to empty it a lot. If I could write like a pee, I'd put out volumes. They finally gave me a second jug, and the techs always inquire about how much water I drink, which is about 4 to 6 quarts a day. I'm not going to go through all this chemo and stem cell transplant and end up with kidney damage. It's hard enough treating a couple of cats for kidney damage. So I drink and pee, and to humor myself, I sing "peeing in a bottle" to the tune of "Message in a Bottle" by the Police — I gotta do something to entertain myself. Since I've been called the Timinator in the past, the Urinator seems most fitting, but the "Wiz" is more PC, I assume.  But then again, in good Urinator fashion, every time I walk out of the bathroom, I turn back to the jugs and tell them "I'll be back!"

Sunrise looking south out of the window of my hospital room

This marks the halfway point through my intensive chemo regimen before the stem cell transplant on Monday. I got in several hours of work for the office, and am over my step goal, but I not sure I can get to 8000 steps today like I did yesterday. They are leaving me hooked up to the I.V. to minimize connecting and disconnecting the access points on my PICC line, which will lesson the risk of infection. So now I have to unplug the IV tree and roll it around with me everywhere. I may walk the corridors of broken dreams by myself, but I'm never alone as I always have my shadow and the I.V. tree beside me.

Senset looking south-southwest.

View of the roof mimicking the mountains in the distance at sunrise.

View of the roof mimicking the mountains in the distance at sunset.

Attempt to get the color and clouds wispiness and changing textures with my phone.

Chemo ran long today with a little over three hours of Cytarabine and what was supposed to be fours hours of Etoposide ended up taking 6 hours, so I didn't finish chemo until after 8:00 pm.  The upside is a got over 7 hours of work in for the office and walked over 8000 steps in the corridors on the floor I'm on. I also have a good view of Milne Stadium and watched high school football teams run around on the field. I couldn't tell if it was a game or practice as they spent most of their time running around on the far end of the field. There were a handful of some people in the stands. All in all, Im hanging in there pretty well at the end of day two.

I was admitted to the hospital this morning to start the 6 days of intensive chemo in preparation for my stem cell transplant on October 17th. I thought these clouds from yesterday's storm were good images for a first day of chemo. The WIFI here is slow and challenging. This blog connects pretty well, but I had to process today's photos as tiny jpegs in order to get them uploaded.  I may have to start using my phone as a hotspot when I do my blog.  The Wordpress side of the blog is hit and miss if it will load pages at all, and still slow with the phone as a hotspot, so I may not be able to create teaser posts on the Wordpress side of my blog while I'm in the hospital.

Lola, Rosencrantz and Spunk.

I had three cats napping and grooming on my legs while I was stretched out on the couch. Spunk was very creative in his napping positions, but then, so was Najar when she was on my lap at the counter.

Spunk

Aerial view of Spunk

Najar

Spunk and Rosencrantz