So everyone came out of the apheresis room, and was hungry, so we went across the road to a local restaurant for lunch. And were summoned back precipitately, because they had counted everyone's stem cells and the results were ready. Hearts in each other's mouths, back we came - and Oystein had 500 million, which was plenty, and Rafa had 750 million ( Read more... )

Day Minus Two: and this is the big one, as far as treatment is concerned. We have been told to expect to be in the clinic for about twelve hours ( Read more... )

As I write this, Karen’s in surgery. By the time I can post it - for I have no wifi at this hospital - we’ll be back at the apartment, and she’ll be fine. Drowsy, maybe. It’s a minor procedure, to connect a port to her bloodstream so that she can be a cyborg for a few days; local anaesthetic and a sedative, no more, but they say she’ll go to sleep ( Read more... )

Day Minus Four, and this is the last of the easy days we get, this side of the countdown. Well, they're all fairly easy for me, obvs: all I have to do is shop and cook and wash dishes and keep an eye on Karen. But we've had a week of largely being in the apartment with no calls on our time; she's had injections morning and evening (when the doctors ( Read more... )

Good morning, from Day Minus Six! (I actually nearly typed Seven there, which would have been wrong. Happily I had the wit to check. These negative hours pass inconsistently, I find, and I lose my place in the calendar ( Read more... )

Day minus eight, or "Friday" in the common tongue: and Karen is ongoingly sick, except for the brief windows afforded by her anti-nausea medications. Of course we expected this, and in honesty it's not as bad as my worst imaginings; but over the last twenty-four hours she's taken in nothing but water and ginger ale, and most of that has come back ( Read more... )

We count the days differently, here in the Clinica Ruiz. Monday was Day Minus Twelve; if today is Wednesday, as I earnestly believe, then it is now Day Minus Ten. Day Zero will be the start of the rest of Karen's life, when she receives her stem cell transplant. The countdown from now to then is all about preparing for that day ( Read more... )

I suppose the getting here could have been more fun - for values of "fun" that include running everything down to the worst imaginable setting - but it's hard to see how ( Read more... )

This time tomorrow, we'll be flying into Mexico, where Karen will be harvested of her stem-cells prior to having her immune system killed off with chemotherapy. Then her stem-cells will be reinserted, her immune system rebooted, and maybe she won't have multiple sclerosis any more ( Read more... )

So I was going to write a long, thoughtful post about search and research and discovery, about possibility and risk and hope - but I'm stressed and anxious and exhausted, and I've spent the day doing scary bureaucratic shit, and that's just not going to happen. I'll hope to come back to it later ( Read more... )