'Ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go

... to quote the old English soccer supporters'' song.  The time for popping expensive pills ($50,000 plus thus far, the vast majority of which has been paid by Medicare (which the GOP want to get rid of but we'll let that one pass), is over and it's time to get serious.  So, starting tomorrow, I head for a stem cell transplant.  Tomorrow sees me having a bone marrow biopsy which literary involved drilling me a second hole in my bum to extract a chunk of my pelvis from.  I get a decent jab of happy juice (I had one about 6 months ago) and it's not too bad a procedure but it does feel like you've been kicked up the butt once the local wears off.
This is followed a couple of weeks later by a full day of lab and physical tests to make sure I'm strong enough to survive the transplant (I am reassuringly told I don't seem to have any problem or the docs would not be considering it).  Once those tests start, my life switches to one that is 50-50 at home in Asheville and in and around Wake Forest Baptist Hospital.  Not that I'm a baptist and I don't think my main doc is either.  My time there starts with a 4 day outpatient appointment during which I get a day of stem cell removal, 4 days of really hefty chemo, possibly a 5th day of stem cell removal and then come home.  I have to have someone with me 24 x 7 and use my own toilet because my urine will be so toxic.  Makes me want to rob a bank - "Hands up or I'll pee on you."
Then a long Christmas break at home during which I really hope it snows.  And then the long recovery starts - 60 days or so during which I have to avoid kids, crowds, theatres and people in general.  I spend the first couple of weeks of that admitted to hospital where there are adequate facilities to stop me going bonkers though, just in case, I will be taking a computer, a pile of DVDs, my iTunes balance and several jigsaws.
So, as they say, 'ere we go...

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