We've allowed the sunflowers to grow into a forest and kept the pathways through the garden cleared. Now that the blooms have finally gotten ahead of the evil little moths that chew through the stalks below the buds at night, it's like walking though a maze of sunflowers and morning glories.

Laurie on the path.

Mermaid

A new gladiola.

We've also allowed the cosmos the make their own colorful forest in and around the sunflowers.

Laurie painted each nail in a different shade of green. The greens are pretty true to color against the red of Veteran's Honor.

A view of the garden from the corner of my darkroom showing layers of roses, vinca, bamboo and cottonwoods. Altisimo is in the foreground on the left.

Standing in the forest of sunflowers.
 

Sunset colors behind the peach tree.

Dream Come True

Dahlia

Altisimo

Cooper's Hawk

Cosmos

Cooper's Hawk taking flight

Altisimo

Mermaid

Mermaid

Finch

Pearl Crescent

Pillow Fight

Bella Roma

Brown Eyed Susan

Rosencrantz

Laurie got a decent photo of me plugged into the stem cell harvester with the VASCATH they stuck in my neck only 15 minutes before they plugged me into the machine. I think I look a lot like my father with my fuzzy head.

As I laid on the couch last night after finding a position that gave me temporary relief from the pain, I wondered how I would ever get anything done again. I couldn't face the computer to read and answer email, let alone even think about posting a blog — two days of stem cell harvesting while dealing with intense pain had taken its toll, and I couldn't do anything but try to get comfortable.

They had harvested half the stem cells they needed to do the transplant on Monday, so Tuesday morning a surgeon placed a VASCATH in my neck. After I saw the VASCATH in my neck, I figured "VAS" must stand for "Vampire Access Straw", and this model had two straws so vampires could share their victim with friends and family, kind of like a double-straw malt from an old-fashioned diner.  I was awake while the surgeon placed the VASCATH and I felt most of the procedure because the local anesthesia was very localized. Right after the surgeon "tacked down" the cath with a couple of sutures, and the nurses got me disconnected and cleaned up, a couple of guys rolled me from surgery to the infusion room on the other side of the hospital, where I was hooked up to the Optia harvester and my blood was circulating through the machine within 15 minutes of being wheeled out of surgery. Being hooked up using the VASCATH for 7 hours was so much better than having to lay on my back as still as possible without moving my arms for 7 hours — even with no pain, 7 hours in one position would be pretty unbearable.

I had gotten my pain pretty well under control by the time I reported for surgery, but as the day wore on it grew worse and seemed to stop responding to pain meds. The problem with doing procedures as an outpatient is that the doctors will not prescribe the really good narcotics that really kill pain because of liability, so when the strongest thing they can legally prescribe doesn't work, you have to grimace and bear it.  

After a really rough night, I managed to get the pain under control, and we went back the hospital this morning to see if they had harvested enough stem cells, and have the VASCATH removed.  Out of the two days, they got 5.7 million, 100% viable stem cells — they needed to get 5 million stem cells for the transplant.  The doctor decided they could pull the VASCATH without doing labs, because my platelets were 55 on Tuesday afternoon, and they only need to be a 20 to pull the cath, so there was little chance they had fallen below 20 in less than 16 hours. Not having to doing labs saved us a couple hours of waiting around, so we were able to make it to a class Laurie and Tristan are taking called The History of  the English Language after we were done with removing the VASCATH and taking my vitals.

The Optia harvester made chugging noises as my blood flowed through various mechanisms into it and out of it, and the dials spun at different speeds like a Steampunk inspired concoction of old-world machine mixed with modern, high-tech assemblies. My stem cells (orange-red) were collected in the large bag in the center.

Laurie got me doing my best "Squint like Clint" look. This is a good close up of the VASCATH with a good view of the "double-straws" for the vampires.

When I asked the nurse at the Cancer Center what I would be doing when I met with the transplant coordinator at Presbyterian Hospital on Monday morning, August 29th, she said the coordinator would go over my labs from Sunday, explain the process for harvesting stem cells, go over the schedule for having the VAS CATH installed, and look at a probable schedule for harvesting stem cells based my labs, then I would be done.  It all sounded so reasonable, and my nurse at the Cancer Center must simply had forgotten to mention that I would be having labs done and getting another high dose Nuepogen shot to begin with. She hadn't said anything about all the paperwork we'd be going over, and signing more papers acknowledging the risks of a stem cells transplant. Or that I would meet with the Social Worker offering lots of support services, but since I didn't look to be on my last legs like many of the patients she said she meets with, she didn't think I looked particularly in need of social services.  Or that I would have to go see a doctor, to show him the scars from the shingles I had developed about 3 weeks ago, and the Cancer Center treated immediately, but failed to mention to the transplant coordinator.  So much for a quick orientation.

It was nearly noon when they were finally done with me, or so I thought. I was getting ready to leave when the transplant coordinator came in a said "your absolute CD34 count is 40! It only needs to be 15 to harvest, so you are at an optimum level to start harvesting. I'm waiting to see what the doctor wants to do!"  The problem was the VAS CATH is scheduled for tomorrow, so they would have to draw my blood from one arm, run it through the machine to extract the stem cells, and then put my blood back using my other arm, forcing me to lay still for up to six hours without moving my arms.  The only real problem with the scenario was that I have intense bone pain from 10 days of high dose Nuepogen shots that are forcing my bone marrow to create white blood cells and stem cells — the pain is a necessary indicator the Nuepogen is working, but pain nevertheless.

I told the transplant coordinator that I would do whatever I needed for them to harvest the stem cells, so I spent four hours on my back, huge needles in both arms, with very restricted movement while the machine harvested my stem cells.  Unfortunately, I had intense pain and was very uncomfortable for the first two and a half hours until they finally gave me an injection of a potent anti-inflamatory that cut the pain level, after the other pain killers failed to work.

They took a mid-session sample of stem cells and sent them off for analysis. From that sample, they may have harvested a sufficient number for the transplant in today's 4 hour session, since the new machines are more efficient and my absolute CD34 count was so high. However, I have to wait until after 8:00 am tomorrow before we know whether we need to harvest more stem cells or not.  In the meantime, the transplant coordinator juggled the schedule for my VAS CATH until after we get the total counts from today's harvest. If they are good we will cancel the VAS CATH. If they need more stem cells, they will install the VAS CATH, and we will do another session.

Old Route 66 (Central Ave) looking west from 4th Street in Downtown Albuquerque on Sunday afternoon, August 28, 2016.

Route 66 (Central Ave), Downtown Albuquerque, 1950 looking west from the railroad bridge. 1st Street is the first cross street. This photo is in a transportation plan for Albuquerque published in 1950. I got a copy of the plan several years ago when the YWCA moved out of their building in Downtown Albuquerque.

I-40 (new Route 66) westbound on Sunday afternoon, August 28, 2016.

I was trying to get the spider on its web in the dark, but the wind kept blowing the web around. The spider finally got tired of the light, ran under a leaf, the wind let up, and I got a clear shot of the web sans spider.