how close to dead can we get?

more new things at the doctor today. it seems my bone marrow is most likely clear, but the doctor still thinks that i've got other spots where the cancer has spread, as shown by the PET scan i had last week. so they started me up on some different chemo today, to see if the tumor is still responsive to chemo. assuming it is, they are planning on doing a bone marrow transplant procedure. what they will do is remove some of my bone marrow, then give me a super high dose of chemo to kill all the cancer, and then once i recover from that, put my bone marrow back in. if this is the route we take, it sounds like i'll be in the hospital for a while. it is also pretty risky, as this high dose of chemo wrecks my immune system and has massive side effects on my body. but if it kills the cancer, i am all for it.

my original rounds of chemo didn't have too many side effects. sure, it killed my red and white blood cells, making me vulnerable as well as very tired. i also lost a lot of hair on different parts of my body, and my skin became pretty sensitive. i didn't, however, throw up, or have much naseau at all, and i was able to eat pretty good still. while i didn't throw up, i did have some rough days/weeks on the toilet, and had more than one stomach ache. i slept good though, and things went pretty easy. this second round of chemo is a little lighter duty than the first. after one day of treatment, i really don't even feel like i had chemo today. maybe it'll catch up to me after the two weeks of every day treatments they are planning for me, we will see.

they also did another biopsy on the shoulder today, which involves a big needle that has a little grabber inside of it that they stuck in my shoulder about four times. they numb it, so it doesn't hurt too bad at the time. but when that shot wears off...boy am i glad for my oxycotton prescription.