Siamo Qui

We are here. (In Italian.) I find myself whispering excusez-moi and lo siento mucho because I know I am somewhere not home, but where that is exactly sits way back in my mind so far. Shalom. They say shalom as a greeting and I like it, love it, but I feel like a fraud saying it yet. Hello.

Hello. My dad and I went on a walk down Dizengoff and saw this guy. I like how his package is shiny, as if people pet him there like a buddha belly for good luck. (I regret not doing so myself.)

I read that in Hebrew slang they say l'hizdangef, or להזדנגף‎ which means to Dizengoff oneself, to stroll down Dizengoff as it is a street known for strolling. Maybe I will co-opt that when I get home. Let's go l'hizdangef the Depot, I might say. But only when I get home. Kind of like how I only speak French to non-French speakers.

This is just a fruit stand I thought was pretty.

Of course I'm not here to sight-see, a fact that weighs on me when I am at the Super Pharm staring too long at shelves of shampoo. At least I think it is shampoo. Everything is in Hebrew, and I realize this must be what it's like to be illiterate, all the world a mishmash of strange looking scritches. Of course I don't need more shampoo anyway seeing as how I will be losing my hair in a few weeks.

Which brings me to why I am here. Hello again. Today I got my treatment schedule, as in: shit just got real, yo. Here it is for all you curious types, medical-minded or those undergoing HSCT:

Tomorrow: Get a picc line inserted. This is not necessary for everyone, just people like me with T-Rex arms and veins the size of angel hair pasta.
Wednesday (day -6): Campath 3mg
Thursday (day -5): Campath 9mg
Friday (day -4): day off (because I will be feeling sick)
Saturday (day -3): day off (sick again)
Sunday (day -2): Fludarabin 40mg/m² and Cytoxan 60mg/kg, then Bone Marrow Aspiration. This is the big time chemo followed by them taking out the stem cells. For the next 3 days I will be staying at the clinic.
Monday (day -1): Fludarabin 40mg/m² and Cytoxan 60mg/kg. More big time chemo. I was told this would be brutal.
Tuesday (day 0): Bone Marrow Transplant. I get my stem cells back, as in January 13 will be my new birthday! They said I will feel better immediately following the bone marrow transplant, but still pretty crappy, a.k.a. there will be varying degrees of feeling really fucking terrible.
Wednesday (day 1): If all goes well and there is no fever, should be able to go back to my hotel room, and this is when effective isolation starts. I will feel pretty awful for the first week, and then around day +11 through day +14 engraftment happens, when my immune system starts to rebuild.

I was also told that my hair will start to fall out around the time of engraftment. So I will trade my hair for a healthy immune system. Side note: while typing that I flashed on there maybe being a biblical story about hair (side side note: can you tell I have never read the bible?) so I Googled it and yeah, something something about Samson and his hair as his strength and it all went down in Israel, yadda yadda, I skimmed it and hope that there is no corollary.

View from the hotel of The White City with the Mediterranean in the distance.

So that's that. Except it's not, of course. There is so much to say about the nurses at CTCI (amazing), the culture (very different), the food (not sure what I am eating, but that's cool), and beneath it all is a deep guttural aching for Bryan, Zoey and Ozzy, but I will save that for another time.

Adios muchachos,
S