Settling In

Well I got to the hospital today, it's been quite a busy few days.

Yesterday I had a minor surgery to remove my old port and put in a new hickman catheter (I wasn't too pleased with that arrangement, of course). So they gave me like double dose of this sedation thing, and I WAS AWAKE THE WHOLE TIME, and very aware of my surroundings. How unfortunate. I must say, it wasn't all that fun. They did numb me up though, in the area they were slicing open. But the sedation medication hit me right after the procedure, so I was really sleepy and nauseated afterwards.

This morning, my mother took me to the hospital. The whole way there, and on the way up in the elevator and going through the doors of 9200 at Duke Hospital, I still could not believe that it was actually happening - which is strange, right? Since I knew about it for months now, and should have been quite prepared (emotionally, physically, spiritually, any other -ually's), but I couldn't process that it was happening to me MENTALLY. I guess the way my brain is wired is really strange, I never realize anything is actually happening/happened until like months later. It's crazy.

So now that I'm hear, I'm glad to have gotten to this point and getting over this step. After all I wouldn't want to drag this on forever. God is always faithful, and has taken me this far, so I am sure I will make it to the end. Praise the Lord!

So I will now post the vague idea of how the transplant works (for those who don't know, or want to know more?), and also just major prayer requests.
Today I got a dose of chemo (I won't go into the specifics unless you are dying to know what kind of chemical they are putting in my veins...), and tomorrow, and Saturday I will be getting double dose chemo. Sunday I get a rest (how appropriate, haha), Monday to Thursday I will be getting Total Body Irradiation twice a day for about 20-30 minutes (hopefully less).
So prayer request for these couple of days is just that God will really watch over me and minimal side effects, also with TBI (radiation) there is a high chance of internal organ damage (actually that comes with chemo too...), so pray that my organs will be kept healthy and strong, just like they are before they entered the whole chemo treatment cycle. I believe that the Lord can do this, and I am praying for it to be so.

Also I would like to let everyone know that I am very grateful for all the financial assistance that me, and my family have been receiving from friends, and church family, and people who work with my parents. So far I think Chinese Baptist Church has opened a financial aid account for me, and my own home church (Raleigh Chinese Christian Church) will be opening one soon. Thank you all so much! And God really does provide for all of us, sometimes through the love of other people, so that is a praise I wanted to share.

I will be receiving the cord bloods next Friday, if all goes as planned, and so I would like to ask brothers and sisters to help pray that the cord bloods will be accepted well in my body, and that they wont be rejected, or they wont reject my own body (so I wont get Graft vs. Host), and pray that the engraftment will come sooner than later (that's when the stem cells finally take hold in my body). The sooner they come, the less time period for infection and other things, and also the sooner I can be discharged from Duke. Yay! My mom said that maybe God will give me that for Christmas this year, haha. Usually for cord blood, engraftment takes about 30-60 days, so if God gives it to me by Christmas, then that would be like less than 30 :) Lets all pray that God can use me to surprise these doctors and nurses, hehe.

Also with all of these treatments, of course there are long term effects, like damaged organs. Also an increased chance of a secondary cancer. Also I will probably have to avoid the sun like the plague from now on, because that triggers GVHD. Anyways, my mom really fears (and I guess I do too to some level) that I won't ever be "normal" again. She was saying "you'll never be able to work in the yard! you'll never be able to travel, or go to china again! you'll never..."etc, etc. Lets pray that, that is not the case (because that would be terrible!).

So they have a wii up in this unit, and they're going to force me to probably use it. Haha...something about getting exercise everyday. That should be interesting. So the food wasn't THAT bad today, I managed to eat most of it (haha, I know I complain about Duke food a lot...), and they have free ice cream yay!

I've also got a lot of things to entertain me with. I've got my new sims3 game! Also a few friends gave me some good books to read, including (thank you Tiffany) 7 books in one collection of CS Lewis (whom I adore), and (thank you Jing Xi) a big fat book that I forgot the title to (will let you know later) that looks like it will help me with my writing - hehe. I will also be trying to become an amazing writer at this time (haha, dreaming big), considering a change of majors when I go back (this is huge, since econ was pretty much set for me) and a new devotionals from Uncle Jan, a Bible magazine, and Jesus's Prayer workbook that I can go through, plus my blog!.

So I'm sure you're thinking, that was a run-on sentence, which makes me technically a horrible writer. Oh well. And that was a fragment.

This is getting kind of long, I think my dad is still updating my calender, if you peoples read that. If not, then, well...that's too bad.

I think I will end it here, but I will update later, hopefully when I'm not feeling too bad. Thank you all for your support!
<3