Day Minus 7-Busulfan, PT, and HEPA Masks

Today marked my first full day at the hospital. It was filled with a lot visits from the nurses, nurses assistants, janitors, physical therapists, doctors, and food service people. While the rooms seem small and outdated, Stanford definitely knows how provide good care for their patients. In the E1 Unit, there are 22 rooms, 4 with double occupancy. For the first week, I have to stay in this shared room until my white blood cell counts drop to be considered "neutropenic."

Neutropenia (noo-troe-PEE-nee-uh) is an abnormally low level of neutrophils. Neutrophils are a common type of white blood cell important to fighting off infections — particularly those caused by bacteria. For adults, counts of less than 1,500 neutrophils per microliter of blood are considered to be neutropenia. For children, the cell count indicating neutropenia varies with age.

I am allowed to walk outside of my room with a HEPA mask and around the hospital, even outside, until my counts make me neutropenic. At that point, I will be restricted to the E1 Unit. My unit is basically a triangle, with rooms along the sides, and nurses stations at each of the three points. There is one conference room near the entrance that can be used by guests to hang out in, or meet with the patients, if it is not being used for meetings.

Today at 6AM was also my first of four chemo treatments of busulfan (3 hours each day) delivered by IV. It is supposed to be well tolerated by most patients. Other than that, its saline all day long, coupled with meds, and a few rounds of blood tests (CBC, CMP).

I was visited by a physical therapist today who introduced me to their exercise regimen for patients. He recommended getting exercise daily, multiple times a day, which means frequent walks around the triangle. Felt like NASCAR doing that today. He left me with an elastic band to use for light strengthening and stretching exercises like bicep curls, tricep curls, ankle stretches. He also left me a spirometer, an instrument for exercising and measuring the air capacity of the lungs.

This morning was also filled with a quick visit by doctors doing rounds. I guess every month there is a rotation of attending doctors on the floor, so it happens to be that the doctor we met with a few days ago is also the attending doctor this month. It gets crazy when the doctors visit, and you have guests and your nurses or nurses assistants all in the room at the same time. Talk about sardine can.

Becky and I capped off the evening by playing some games (Sequence and Blokus), eating dinner, and watching some Jeopardy in the conference room. Good to get out of the room and do something different besides sit in bed.

The food was good yesterday. I ordered teriyaki udon noodles with chicken and shrimp for lunch and an avocado burger with potato wedges for dinner.