A Tale of Two Cities

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Emboldened by my exploration into hard-hitting medical editorial in my "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Cord Blood Transplant But Were Afraid to Ask" post(click here to visit) I am now moving on to British Literature.

In sunny Burlingame, I had the good fortune to see Michael, Isabel and Devon in their home in Burlingame. It was a typical Dad-With-Two-Daughters scene with the video plugged in, a living room floor full of toys, and Mike running around trying to get socks and shoes onto both of his daughters' feet before they headed off to Palo Alto to see Bonnie's sister. (Typical scene in my household with Kelsey and Britney when Kristen is away.)

Meanwhile, in summery Minneapolis, Bonnie talked to my wife on the phone. It was Sunday (day 3) and she was complaining of some mucousitis which is a result of chemo and TBI (total body irradiation). Basically the cells of your mouth, throat and digestive tract are irritated, and at some point, a patient may need to take pain meds to relieve this constant irritation.

Probably the biggest irritation to Bonnie, however, was the insistence that she stay pent up in her small hospital room for the duration (infection-fighting precaution). Imagine a room half-filled with her exercise machine, and Madame Defarge (that would be Bonnie) knitting away.

Of interest to Bonnie and Kristen was the fact that the patient next door to her did become patient number one for the experimental therapy of injecting the cord blood stem cells directly into his marrow via hyperdermic needle. His transplant was the day before Bonnie and she has an indirect measure of her progress by hearing tidbits about her neighbor's progress. So far so good for both of them.